On his third and most impressive solo album, Andrew Bird takes a leap into new territory while retaining what makes him so damn appealing in the first place. - by Connor McGlynn
I would like to express my love and admiration for the work of Andrew Bird. There was a time in 2005 between February 8th, the day Bird's The Mysterious Production Of Eggs was released into the collective indie eardrum, and March 22nd (the day Bloc Party debuted Silent Alarm), when I fell victim to his craft. It was my first exposure to his music, and songs like "Measuring Cups" and "Fake Palindromes" instantly opened my eyes to his unique musical and lyrical style. Each song on Eggs played with the tiny hairs on my cochlea covering a whole spectrum of intensity, from the lovely, swaying "Sovay" to the alarming and mysterious "Banking On A Myth."
For many, this album was Bird's best work, one that solidified a genre that he certainly made his own. After a two-year span of touring and recording, Bird returned with an album so blindingly close to perfection and deeply rooted in change that it left some reviewers gasping for breath and yet puzzled others. His lyrics retain their usual wittiness and humor ("And the wine made our mouths too loose / such a reckless choice of words / when you tell me that I'm too abstruse / I just thought it was a kind of bird") while his music may have succumbed to the greatest amount of evolution we've seen from him yet.
On "Dark Matter," Bird begins by demonstrating his remarkable whistling and progresses the song much like the way he constructs his live performances, piling on layer upon layer of violin plucking, progressive drumming, and loose guitars. On one of the album's many highlights, "Simple X," Bird showcases one of his catchiest tunes yet as drummer and long-time friend Martin Dosh beat-battles with a drum machine. It's hard not to recall a bit of Beck on this track (think Odelay's shifting beats and Sea Change's narcotic subtleties, with obvious vocal similarities).
Bird faithfuls generally seem to be on the lamb about Armchair Apocrypha. Some mistake Bird's inventive and dextrous lyrics for those of meaningless abstraction and abstrusity (see the lyric above for Bird's response), while others seem to feel that the album as a whole lacks the ingenuity and substance that his previous releases almost relentlessly display. It's without a doubt that Armchair is his most accessible release (that's not to say his others are inaccessible), but don't let yourself get caught up in cliché: just because an artist is creating undeniably appealing songs doesn't mean the artist has gone for the $green$ and abandoned his base.
Armchair Apocrypha is Andrew Bird's strongest release to date and if current vibes don't float that way, they most likely will as his career expands in the upcoming years. It's likely his future musical endeavors will see just as much progression but for an artist whose last two solo albums soared over similar plains, Armchair marks this Bird's flight into new territory while continuing to illustrate his strength as a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and yes... as a whistler too.
[MP3] Andrew Bird - Heretics
Previously on IGIF: Andrew Bird: Heretics | Fingerlings 3 | Black Session [Live]
Official Site | MySpace Site | More MP3s | Buy Armchair Apocrypha
8 comments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktxy7ikUKjM
andrew on letterman(stripping(just shoes))
great review, i agree 100% that this is his best album. def top 5 of the year for me
I just saw him live last night and he put on an absolutely amazing show. I never really understood how amazing he was until last night. Glad to say I finally own a copy of the album.
hooray for andrew bird
i've really been diggin this album. plus i got to see bird play union hall on monday. it was sold out but i got martin dosh to sneak me in :) and bird is a bit awkward in person.
The album is strong but I don't think it's his best. I love how your first line there was the complete opposite of Pitchfork's assessment. I think they got it more right on that point - I didn't really hear anything that was groundbreaking for him on the album. Still it's one of the best albums that will be made this year I bet
I think this is by far his best album lyrically. What throws me is how much he is relying on the guitar instead of the violin to drive the songs.
Plus there is not enough of the glock-whistle...
good review Connor. I think I agree. I miss some of the old Bowl of Fire characters and fixtures: somepeople, the calypsos and old Harry Smith stuff. but with like a dozen recordings out, there’s now enough here for the music to move about within its own mythology. you can still be self referential even if some of the good old boys were incinerated in the apocalypse.
and I like what he and Martin Dosh are doing (on tour too). really playing off each other, reciprocal looping, a couple of mirrors facing off and multiplying everything in between. anything crossing their field of reflection - Dosh’s junk kit, crumpled paper and cardboard, flocks of airborne plastic bags, burning oil wells and other furniture – all multiplied. I’ve got to say, the looping is way supernatural to me, like Bruce Lee and Han fighting in the hall of mirrors, so I’m pretty mystified.
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