Live Review: The Fiery Furnaces in Los Angeles

Just a few minutes into The Fiery Furnaces' show at L.A.'s Echo Saturday (10/16), it all became clear: why reviewers always seem at a loss for words after the band's shows, why the adjectives that do come up are often "unpredictable" and "epic," why comparisons to everyone from The Who to Gilbert & Sullivan actually make sense, and, mostly, why the band went through an inordinately long soundcheck before they played.

If a guitar string had broken, a drum pedal wobbled or a keyboard gone flat, the band would have had to stop--something they didn't do, not once, for more than 40 minutes. In a rock-opera-like stampede, the Illinois-bred, New-York-based Furnaces, led by brother and sister Matt and Eleanor Friedberger, pummeled their way through their two albums, "Gallowsbird's Bark" and "Blueberry Boat," with songs that broke apart, came back on themselves and blended so much, it was almost impossible to find beginnings or endings to any of them.

This method of playing--which seems to immediately put an audience in a jaw-dropped trance--works well with the band's songs: lyrical fables that are just as likely to cast stories of exotic seafaring as suburban boredom, to invoke place names like Damascus and Turku as often as Mason City and Franklin Park. By chopping these songs into pieces and blending them in a dizzying mash, lyrics like "Great gulps of Greek fire get us in/Sling sticks at the stockade Fort Dauphin," fall into "I was 18 years old just a research volunteer/I walked home from the TCBY each night with no fear," and somehow make for a coherent deluge of smart words and clanging noise.

While the stamina of all the band members for keeping up this pace was impressive, the hardest work rested on Eleanor Friedberger's thin-framed shoulders to hold up the continuous, intricate vocals. Looking part punk, part performance artist, she never weakened on her singing assault, despite mentioning early on she was losing her voice. Meanwhile, her brother alternated between guitar and keyboards and added to her vocals, Toshi Yano worked on bass and synth, and drummer Andy Knowles--with sticks and arms faux-dramatically spinning everywhere--could have made an experimental show of his own.

Occasionally, Eleanor would announce the name of a song--but the performance obviously included the vast majority of the band's work, whether each song lasted three minutes or three lines. This must be a mixed gift to real fans: they definitely get to hear everything, but their favorites may be lost in the shuffle or started, cut off by five other songs, and finished later. Still, for anyone who likes to feel smacked and dazed by music, or who loves a big finale when a few songs blend into one, this band offers more than that in a succinctly satisfying form--even if the show ends long before you've had any time to think about it.