Bitter Tea (2006)

While The Fiery Furnaces confounded many with 2005's Rehearsing My Choir, a CD about their grandmother, who also provided vocals, Bitter Tea is a more normal effort, albeit one with a song about checkbook-balancing Mormons (''Oh Sweet Woods''). Matthew Friedberger continues to create synth-heavy mini—rock operas that alternate between childishly charming and plain irritating. But the real appeal is sister Eleanor, whose voice would be mercurially distinctive were she to repeat a phone number — which she does on ''The Vietnamese Telephone Ministry.''

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