Stereogum-premiered “The End Is Near” comes from I’m Going Away, the new Fiery Furnaces album, out July 21, and it’s a head-scratcher. Not in the regular, make-a-concept-album-about-our-grandma Fiery Furnaces way, but in that it’s actually straightforwardly delightful sounding. In the past, the Fiery Furnaces have been willing to sound straightforwardly delightful for song segments and the occasional full track (the jokey “My Dog Was Lost,” for one), but this upcoming album will be all delightful: “70s sunshine-glazed piano pop, filled with cascading note slides, head-nodding grooves,” according to the label, Thrill Jockey. Of course, it’s not really all sunshine — the lyrics here are ominous and bleak. But we accept this on its surface level, as this is exactly how we want to enter the black night: lulled into a false sense of security.
New Fiery Furnaces - “The End is Near” (Stereogum Premiere) [Stereogum]
