Widow City (Bonus Track Version)

On Widow City, the fifth album from Fiery Furnaces, siblings Eleanor and Matthew Friedburger settle into their art-pop niche with ease and confidence, avoiding the everything-AND-the-kitchen-sink approach that has overwhelmed some of their prior efforts. Matthew makes the music here (except drums, skillfully played by Robert D’Amico, who creates an assertive percussive backbone with the same playful, kinetic energy as his counterparts), and Eleanor handles virtually all the vocals. Inspired on this outing by ‘70s album rock (big guitars, operatic arrangements, shifting tempos, hints of bombast) and by themes from media and advertising specifically aimed at women in the 1970s (really, we’re not kidding), Widow City is a carefully crafted artwork that digresses as little as one imagines the duo is able to manage. The lengthy opener is a fine example of how they build a song with countless pieces and parts to create a cohesive whole: a verbal narrative gives way suddenly to emotional opining; loping and unadorned piano and organ nudges up against spastic, fuzzy guitars; clean and spare percussion morphs into a military backbeat, and so forth. Think of the album as a theater piece, each song as an act, and while reading the program notes (er, press release) at intermission, you’ll chuckle over the bands’ attempt to explain their work: “The synthesizer filtering of the acoustic guitar in ‘Duplexes of the Dead’ indicates the odd light that filters through the dirty curtains a duplex of the dead would no doubt have.”