Rowing And Strumming

The Fiery Furnaces “I Broke My Mind / Spaniolated / Single Again” (live) – I waited and waited, and finally there is a high quality recording of a Fiery Furnaces show online! It’s right here, streaming in realaudio thanks to the good people of the Netherland’s VPRO. It’s a very fun show and virtually everything in the setlist is arranged differently from the album recordings. “I Broke My Mind” and “Single Again” are highlights of the show, and are both songs which will likely turn up on the band’s third LP. Both songs have a light, cheerful tone and choruses which stick to your brain like superglue. Before yesterday, I had only ever heard “I Broke My Mind” twice in my life, but could remember exactly how the hook went in my head. This live version of “Spaniolated” (which is more or less the same as it was played when I saw them in Brooklyn a few months ago) blows the relatively plain Blueberry Boat version out of the water – the song is so much better recast as a boppy pop tune; I’m sure that most of you will agree.

Guided By Voices “Girls Of Wild Strawberries” – This is taken from what is said to be Guided By Voices’ final album, Half Smiles Of The Decomposed. As far as endings go, it’s more of a long, sad goodbye than a last hurrah, more whimper than bang. And that’s fine, really, because I don’t think that Pollard really could have made a record right now which would’ve felt like the band going out on top, though Universal Truths & Cycles from a few years ago could have done the trick. It was probably more appropriate to go with the sad ending anyhow, given how melancholy so much of the GBV catalog has been.

Half Smiles continues the string of mostly uninspired recordings that Pollard has been putting out since Universal Truths. Last year’s Earthquake Glue in particular felt like the work of an artist in a state of inertia – the melodies were pretty, but lifeless and the guitars lacked much in the way of memorable hooks and just hummed along in a nondescript haze of chords and fuzz. The guitars on Half Smiles are more varied in texture (thank God), but the chords and tones themselves aren’t particularly interesting. Pollard is a fantastic songwriter, and I will always stand by that, but the guy really needs a broader sonic palette and a wider range of chords to play with. Sometimes it seems as though Pollard has created this vast catalog of demos for future artists to fully realize, without the limitations imposed on or by Pollard throughout his own recording career.