Fiery Furnaces vs. 1993 in: Lou Barlow, You Old Scamp!

So it was­n’t rev­e­la­to­ry or awe-inspir­ing. It was curi­ous, just curi­ous. The video above comes from Fiery Fur­naces most recent tour. Their lat­est incar­na­tion? An ear­ly nineties, post-hard­core indie rock act, with caveats galore. They’re sharp­er and more musi­cal­ly adept than the style­fuck their ham­mer­ing on, and maybe too glam for the pas­tiche — Eleanor’s white hot out­fit looks more and more like Fred­die Mer­cury’s — but Ex-Sebadoh bassist Jason Loewen­stein’s involve­ment has come full circle.

Such ener­getic music, at least in this style, seems anachro­nis­tic some­how, reek­ing of the reunion tours still to come [Pave­men­t’s is alleged­ly rid­ing on the hori­zon and, if you can believe it, Wowee Zowee Luxe & Reduxe is due some­time this fall]. And while the per­for­mance was nei­ther gut-wrench­ing­ly earnest nor taint­ed with the tongue-in-cheek irony that came to define “indie”, the stripped down gui­tar-ori­ent­ed set, did­n’t suit them well. And yet the curios­i­ty remained because what makes The Fiery Fur­naces so spe­cial is their Dylanesque ver­sa­til­i­ty, rear­rang­ing songs so dra­mat­i­cal­ly as to make them prac­ti­cal­ly unrec­og­nize­able while main­tain­ing all the quirky, book­ish qual­i­ties that have made them a cult favorite.

So while it was more than a lit­tle dis­ap­point­ing to hear songs like “Teach Me Sweet­heart” de-sexed, there’s always the next incar­na­tion to look for­ward to. And if the Gilber­to Gil album that played on the P.A. is any indi­ca­tion, a return to florid arrange­ments — and per­haps total trop­i­calia — seems like­ly. Yet the ques­tion remains: where me Fiery Fur­naces dub?

[See also: Fiery Fur­naces’ Media Repos­i­to­ry]