In 2005, sibling duo The Fiery Furnaces recorded
and released an album prominently featuring their grandmother, in the process
making it clear that they cared little for indie-rock convention. Their latest audacious move: a
double-live album that, surprisingly, works—primarily due to some
innovative sequencing and arranging. A stripped-down aesthetic colors much of Remember, as the group's normally
fey, fragile material becomes increasingly aggressive, even muscular,
throughout these live performances. While the approach irons out some of the
Furnaces' beloved eccentricities, it also shows the band embracing a fuller,
more confident sound—one that it has yet to fully capture in the studio.
Yet Remember
is weighed down a bit by its own obsessive tendencies. It's apparent that the
album is to be understood as an exercise in collective memory, but it's unclear
whether such an exercise is meant to include the band's fans, or if it's solely
limited to the band itself.