Matt Friedberger with sister Eleanor, constitutes The Fiery Furnaces’ core duo. Matt is four years older than Eleanor and they had a fairly standard sparring-sibling relationship growing up outside of Chicago (somewhat immortally documented in bio for the last album, which they co-wrote). He helped her learn to play guitar, but the two never made music together until 2000. The two moved separately to Brooklyn in 2001 and cohabited for awhile, a situation they're not likely to repeat. They signed with Rough Trade early in 2003 and recorded the basic tracks for their debut album Gallowsbird’s Bark in three days.

From such modest origins, the album (and subsequent exhaustive touring) attracted a not unsubstantial following and triggered many a rock critic's salivary glands. The Furnaces have responded to this attention in the way they usually do: by making more music. Already this year, the group has done tours with Franz Ferdinand and the Shins, recorded a new 3 track e.p. and is currently planning an album upon which their 80-year-old grandmother, Olga Sarantos, will sing. But first, the band release their second full length album, Blueberry Boat.

A far cry from the Furnaces' feted debut, Blueberry Boat is more ambitious, more elaborately arranged, more diverse, longer, bigger, louder and better in just about every way: It makes the unusual Gallowsbird seem positively conventional. It's progressive without being prog; it's smart without being supercilious. Although many of the songs date from the band's early days and will be familiar to anyone who's seen them live, they're presented as parts of a sprawling, ambitious 76-minute opus inspired by The Who's mini-rock operas before 'Tommy': quick-cut songs like 'Rael' and 'A Quick One.'" The band darts in and out of the songs, changing direction abruptly and theatrically, but in a way that makes perfect sense according to the album's own logic.

There are all kinds of ways to say that a band is "pushing the envelope" and "breaking the rules" and "taking things to the next level," and all of them sound equally ridiculous. The Fiery Furnaces' second album does those things, but its real trick is in its ability to test the limits of the band's abilities and ambition without losing the fun and enjoyment that leads people to listen to rock music in the first place.

The approach is an extension of the Furnaces' live sets, which find their catalog being reinvented every night: The songs are played faster, slower, harder, stranger or, most recently, as parts of an almost James Brown-style medley that lasts for the entire set. The elaborate structure and vaguely recurring nautical theme of Blueberry Boat give it the air of a concept album, but thankfully it's not.

Blueberry Boat contains the band's best work to date, with some of its prettiest and poppiest moments - "Chris Michaels," "Bird Brain," "Spaniolated" - juxtaposed with some of its most ambitious and complex. It's an album in which you continually discover new things; it's an album that can be your friend for a long time.

The Fiery Furnaces can be found at: http://www.thefieryfurnaces.com/

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