Widow City | Loppylugs

Submitted by Matthew Baker on 14 February 2013 - 10:43pm

Cover:

Artist:

The Fiery Furnaces

album-ID:

a_18

Nationality:

USA

Year:

2 007

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

The Philadelphia Grand Jury*Duplexes of the Dead*Automatic Husband*Ex-Guru*Clear Signal from Cairo*My Egyptian Grammar*The Old Hag Is Sleeping*Japanese Slippers*Navy Nurse*Uncle Charlie*Right by Conquest*Restorative Beer*Wicker Whatnots*Cabaret of the Seven Devils*Pricked in the Heart*Widow City

Length-in-mins:

Nominator:

Bean

meeting-ID:

m_9

Now-num:

Spotify-URL:

6NznSwTJJaUtIMaGCziKMS

Grooveshark-URL:

Widow+City/138648

Short-title:

widowCity

nominator-ID:

u_2

Meeting-date:

Tuesday, 4 March 2008

MusicBrainz-URL:

5a5ede85-87d1-37d9-a6d0-d5c106c4ea7f

Wikipedia-URL:

Widow_City

Spotify-link-type:

album

Metacritic-URL:

widow-city/the-fiery-furnaces

Discogs-URL:

Fiery-Furnaces-Widow-City/master/145465

Allmusic-URL:

widow-city-mw0000490934

BBC-URL:

zvp2

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108

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117

reviewers-IDs data

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81

reviewed by

Matthew Baker

Incest reaps rewards

2-3-5-7

Some of the other reviews crticisms are why I like it. Complex, the fast vocal style and choppy to me are good things. I like this cause it throws you off quiet a lot. I like easy listens sometimes, but other times I enjoy the rhythmic tussle. It's a proper studio album, I've heard them try and play it live and they can't. The production is great, a lovely analogue sound and lots of unusual sounds that you have no idea what is producing them. I agree it's over long and it tails off badly at the end, but the first 9 tracks are worth the admission price alone, as they say. Reminds me of lots of things, including Bugsy Malone (which is a first) but they've got their own sound, quite rare in this day and age.
77

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

A difficult and demanding album, but in a nice way

3-4-6-8-12

1-5-9-11

First off, I think some of these tracks are great. Awkward and clever-clever for sure, with all the grotesque, unnecessary, fiddly nonsense of what I guess to be their influences; Beefheart, Pavement and Zappa. I reckon they've also got a few Residents albums in their collections too, most obviously in my choice cut of the album, Automatic Husband, which is full of low-tech off-kilter instrumentation.

When it goes wrong it's pretty horrible, I'm thinking 'Clear Signal from Cairo' here - annoying, stuttering, overlong, loud. The first song, too, is not their best, an unsatisfactory introduction which faces the same charge sheet.

Good songs or bad you gotta be in the mood for this sort of thing but once you get past the wanton silliness there's loads of good sounds to appreciate.
50

reviewed by

Jon Taylor

Curate's egg - good in parts.

4-5-9

Interesting, intellectual, complex music. When it works, it's very good, but more often than not it doesn't quite work. Too much of the album is too clever for its own good.
46

reviewed by

Richard Norbury

Beefheart wannabies but not good enough. Shame really because the picture of Mrs Furnace on the cover is rather good.
32

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

Complex, Fussy, Too long. A difficult listening experience

There's no doubt that this band are intelligent and original, which is a good thing naturally, and you feel like you should like it. But the constant habit of trying to fit too much vocal content into too small a space gets tiresome very quickly. The music is choppy and has no flow, which is fine as a novelty, but annoying over the entire album as you can never settle and relax with the music. It's also way too long, eight tracks would have done.