Fiery Furnaces – Gallowbird’s Bark

The Fiery Furnaces’ debut, Gallowbird’s Bark, is a far-out, jolly ramble with jangly piano and wah-wah guitar tossed into a rucksack and schlepped on the back of a time-traveling pirate.

A real brother-and-sister combo from Brooklyn, N.Y., the Fiery Furnaces rock like a couple of saloon muses from the Wild West of another planet. Forget both the cocksure cheese-blues of Detroit and the pale-faced punk-pop of New York — the Furnaces are out there, like a female Captain Beefheart spinning the Rolling Stones and Karlheinz Stockhausen, shooting doubles of Old Crow and Absinthe.

Singer Eleanor Friedburger’s voice is captain of the whole ship, oozing warm, thick brownness and girlifying, what-the-hell lyrics like “I pierce my ears with a 3-hole punch/Ate 12-dozen donuts for lunch.”

Put that over boom-boom blues kick drum, strolling-together guitar and piano, and sporadic, odd electronics, and you get a big casserole of strange music with something of an acquired taste. Gallowbird’s Bark bends, tweaks and generally fucks with your mind, and after a few listens, you’ll love it for that.

— Ian S. Port

Staff Writer

Dios – Dios

In terms of instantly memorable songs, it’s hard to think of a better band out right now than dios. The young band’s first full-length delivers a low-key, lo-fidelity collection of songs that never ceases to astound, teeming with ideas and simple arrangements that stay with you long after the songs are over.

The opener “Nobody’s Perfect,” begins with a slow-building, sci-fi keyboard intro that devolves into mysterious guitar plucking and Joel Morales’s wistful singing. The keyboards build the song to a dynamic climax without ever relying on distorted guitar theatrics or overblown singing, displaying dios’ hidden power in subtle, tasteful arrangements that are nonetheless entirely grabbing.

On the catchy “Starting Five,” Joel jokes, “If I want I’ll paint my toes/If I want I’ll wear her clothes” over a sing-along melody and reliable major-to-minor chord hooks. His pilfering of a Beach Boys melody in “50 Cents” is excused by the song’s slow-burning presentation, stripped down and eventually reaching a satisfying, harmony-laden denouement.

Brother Kevin Morales’s songs are a little more scattered. “The Uncertainty” is beautiful and epic, and “You’ll Get Yours” is extremely catchy, but his later album entries smack of excessive Beatles worship. Nonetheless, dios are so likable you won’t care that their ideas aren’t entirely original. If they can transfer some of the grandeur of their live performances into future recordings, there’s no telling what they’ll accomplish.

— Billy Gil

Associate Hiatus Editor

Talib Kweli – Quality

Talib Kweli’s official solo debut, Quality, is a mesh of thought-provoking lyrics and a handful of guest rappers and beats that are created from instruments you won’t find on most hip-hop albums.

“Joy” is a unique track in which Kweli raps about the days his kids were born and how they turned him into the person he is now. The beats on the album rely heavily on string and brass instruments along with pianos, instead of overusing a drum machine. This allows the album to flow from one track to the next, as there isn’t a hard bass line to adjust to in the beginning of each song.

While most rappers bring in fellow MCs on their albums because they cannot carry it on their own, this album, instead, provides a forum for Kweli’s friends to talk about both positives and negatives they’ve seen over the years.

Each song is not used to get people into the clubs, but rather to go out and make a difference in the world they live in.

— Tim Spulecki

Staff Writer