The Fiery Furnaces

Upon forming in Brooklyn in 2000, The Fiery Furnaces defied anyone to find any of their songs conventionally catchy. Instead, the brother-sister band—with its half-spoken/half-sung vocals and bass-drowning chord changes—preferred experimentation: 2005’s Rehearsing My Choir, for instance, mixed music with tales told by the duo’s grandmother. Since then, however, the band has significantly mellowed out. Its first Thrill Jockey release, 2007’s Widow City, dabbled in straight-up, ’70s-inspired tunes, while 2009’s I’m Going Away was the most accessible Fiery Furncaes album to date. But the duo never stops tinkering: Last year it released Take Me Round Again, in which the siblings re-wrote and re-recorded six songs apiece from I’m Going Away.

Updated 05/11/2011