Ezra Furman

Ezra Furman & The Harpoons – Banging Down The Doors

“Hello. This song is called Mother’s Day. It’s about a whore that I knew in Chicago.” And thus sparks the vibrant debut and twisted wit of Ezra Furman, a Chicago native who’s been building a repertoire of playfully confrontation songwriting built around an acoustically tough rock and roll style of à la Violent Femmes. With a voice that warbles with the awkwardness of Femmes’ Gordon Gano or yelps in a similar manner of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah frontman Alec Ounsworth, Ezra’s snide tales burst forth with the brashness that emphasis the tongue-in-cheek angst he often sings in machine gun type delivery. The slow shuffle opening of “God Is A Middle-Aged Woman”, an introspective tale of a relationship in question, ends with Ezra exploding with full vocal emotion that would probably have left the microphone dripping in spittle. With production by Brian Deck (Iron & Wine, Califone, Modest Mouse), the urgency is rendered perfectly in acoustic sharpness.