The Fiery Furnaces are absolute shit. At their very best, they are a pathetic, degenerate aping of the sort of shifts and nonlinear composition that you see in the best musical theater (Sondheim, anyone?); at their worst, they are a pathetic, degenerate aping of the sound of a scattershot band of inspired creatives undermined by the inability to organize or mesh their fifteen thousand ideas, yet distinguished from that sort by the fact that there are no ideas here to organize.

Pitchfork, playing a joke on indie rock.

CRAP

if ever a band needed to be assessed on an album by album basis the Fiery Furnaces are that band. Gallowbirds Bark is a fantastic album packed with amazing songs and melodies that stick in your mind, as is their "EP" album. Both of these albums contain straightforward arrangements and are arguably better off for it.
Blueberry boat, I saw them perform most of this live as a medley, and went out and bought the album only to be let down by the unnecessarily drawn out arrangements, but there's still good music buried under the crap.
The album with the grandmother is an inexcusably crap self indulgent piece of shit.
Bitter Tea sounds like a back to basics album but I haven't liked any of the songs I heard on it so far.

So on the basis that I liked their early stuff, and because they can be spectacular live, not crap

saw them live a couple of weeks ago

total shit