The double album solo debut from Matthew Friedberger of The Fiery Furnaces is a mixed bag that’s often exasperating. While there are great songs buried within both albums, it takes a bit of digging to find them.
Winter Women’s opener, "Under the Hood at Paradise Garage," is a bit of a head scratcher. Stuttering and clunky, it’s heavy on lo-fi beats and Friedberger isn’t afraid to throw in some cheap effects. The track isn’t terribly catchy, but its construction is intriguing. Many of the songs that follow, however, lack the same quirky charm and stray dangerously into easy listening territory with a flute dogging nearly every track. Although "P.S. 213 Mini-School" is decent, the album really picks up with the last five songs, which are actually pretty good, throwing in weird arrangements and odd noises for good measure. Of these, I enjoyed "I Love You Cedric" the most because of its strange rhythm and the chiming guitar.
Holy Ghost Language School is designed to be the more experimental of the two albums. "Seventh Loop Highway" starts the album as a Beefheartian stomp but halfway through drops the guitar in favor of piano and follows a completely different muse to its completion. There are plenty of experiments to be found elsewhere on this disc, but many of them simply aren’t developed enough to warrant multiple listens. As enjoyable as the second half of the title track is, without the first half it would have been even better. Some of the songs, like "The Cross and the Switchblade," are just plain boring. "Do You Like Blondes?" engages with the strange tone of its bass and Friedberger’s spoken word accompaniment, but "Topeka and San Antonio" gets annoying quickly. After a while this disc becomes a morass of recurring motifs and approaches that tires more than it entertains.
There are enough gems between the two discs for one fantastic album, but as a double album it’s a bit of a stretch.
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