Reviewing Ezra Furman’s Day of the Dog

By Brett Callwood on Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 12:23 pm

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Chicago native Ezra Furman is perhaps best-known up to this point as the main man behind the Boston-based band Ezra Furman and the Harpoons, formed when the members were in college. Then he broke that band up, returned home to Chi-town and wrote the songs on Day of the Dog (Bar None) alongside his new band, the Boy-Friends.
So that’s where we are now. Angsty-college kid forms a band then breaks up a band and goes solo. Except that the resulting album, this one, is a killer. Furman has taken the schizophrenic energy of CBGB’s bands like the Talking Heads, Television and Mink Deville while carefully listening to unconventional contemporary bands like Radiohead and even Sigur Ross. His voice goes from beautifully heartfelt to primal aggression so flippantly that it’s easy to assume that he’s ever so slightly unhinged. Either that, or he’s a great actor. He’s certainly a tremendous songwriter and performer.