Ezra Furman

Americans have an undeniable and insatiable appetite for voyeurism. Readily feeding them hearty portions is front-man Ezra Furman, who makes no qualms about peddling the deeply personal to the public and draws no drapes between himself and an audience thanks to his pulsating, confessional songwriting style. Through his eponymous Chicago-based quartet, Ezra Furman & the Harpoons, Furman employs the same open-chest honesty that drew ire for Ginsberg’s Howl and spawned speculation of Cohen’s Chelsea Hotel as he pines for his Wild Rosemarie and recounts bouts of transience during the making of the band’s upcoming third studio LP, Mysterious Power.

With lyrics featuring the fittingly dualistic motif of blood – representing both the humor d’amour and the stomach-turning stains of tragedy – Furman’s music madly swings between wide-eyed sentimentality and brutally truthful accounts of life’s grotesqueries. Forging ahead with Furman’s brazenly rust-tinged croons, the band solders rollicking rockabilly rhythm and love-struck doo-wop sensibility with punk-rock ferocity and immediacy. In a musical alloy as unlikely as it is engaging, Furman finds release for bleeding-heart sensitivity and bloody-knuckled brawls of conscience as he “declares open warfare on jadedness, cynicism and irony.” (Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune)

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