Most That Glitters Is Gold. Eleanor Friedberger, Last Summer.

Eleanor Friedberger husks gloriously emotionlessly on Last Summer opener My Mistakes: "he's ignoring me like it's 2001" and while we can but hope such a revelation may not refer to a breakdown in communications between she and brother and fellow Fiery Furnace Matthew, the record suggests that this particular sister isn't finding too much difficulty in doing it for herself. The reverse of the cardboard slipcase in which the promo version of her debut solo record is housed is all rather rudimentary, Friedberger pulling a spectacularly unconvincing 'rawk' pose (needless to say devil horn gesturing doesn't feature), sunburst Stratocaster unplugged and adding to this air of the inexpert. However when it comes to the aural product contained within this rather crude packaging, well, there's some masterful lo-fi adroitness at hand.

Inn of the Seventh Ray centres around Friedberger lamenting a shattered promise of being wined (or indeed vodkaed and tequilaed) and dined at the Californian culinary refuge of the same name. Disappointed and deluded, if she's willing to fess up to her own mistakes on the LP's lead single, she here makes it patently clear that she expects to be given at least a reciprocal level of respect. And with a Motown-beholden stomper like Heaven to uncloak, R.E.S.P.E.C.T is not merely merited but commanded. It's her most memorable and incontrovertibly direct song since Straight Street, and proffers quite straightforward intimation that she's a songwriter whose laborious fruits are as succulent as any to be plucked from generically similar fields. Alas, "being a mannequin was all I could manage" does little to make Scenes from Bensonhurst stand out while the acoustic, overly odd One-Month Marathon, urged on by monotonous rhythms, is sluggish, chugging exasperatingly to nowhere. The clinking clap-along of Early Earthquake, while seemingly initially inappropriate a denouement, is inexplicably, gradually, transmuted into an intransigently unforgettable number, two-and-a-bit palpitating, scattily abstract minutes signing Eleanor off with the unduly dramatic caprice of an adolescent scribbling infinite tryout autographs. However encaged by the ribs of Last Summer, the beating heart of this one is the arresting brace of the expansive proto-funk slump of Roosevelt Island and the sultrily soulful, Detroit-indebted Glitter Gold Year, Friedberger ambiguously elucidating her desire to erase either 2010 or an unidentified "her" from serving memory. If you were ever tempted to expunge or extinguish The Fiery Furnaces from your hard drive, you'd be better advised to continue to incorporate, adding this wry, episodically maudlin effort to the allegorical lumber.