Our look at the closing lines of the biggest new-music reviews continues with a roundup of reactions to Noble Beast, the new album by Andrew Bird:
• “With its crackling percussion, somber woodwinds, and shivering machines, ‘Not a Robot, But a Ghost’ could be a lost Thom Yorke track, including the doleful tenor. A note to new listeners: If you’re unfamiliar with Bird’s lyrics, you may want to pull up a chair and a dictionary. The man’s wordsmithing is even headier than his beautiful songs.” [Boston Herald]
• “But Noble Beast veers off into a cheerily nonspecific world of jangly guitars and meandering melodies that evoke everyone from Okkervil River to Radiohead without ever making an impact of their own. By largely ditching beloved personal trademarks like exotic tonalities and that emphatic violin pizzicato, Bird’s suddenly just another member of the flock.” [Entertainment Weekly]
• “Given the album’s excessive runtime, Bird probably could have stood to cull a few of the weaker numbers, and with the additional room, might have reworked a few of the selections from Useless Creatures into experimental pop songs, thereby tempering his lack of risk taking on Noble Beast. By pursuing just such a hybrid approach, Bird could have reconciled his two halves: pop auteur and experimental composer, neurotic producer and easygoing improviser. Here’s hoping that his next album is, indeed, just such a Noble Creature.” [PopMatters]
• “Although it’s undoubtedly consistent and enjoyable, these are the kind of adjectives that restrain this established songwriter from truly challenging or surprising his audience. And one can’t help but wish for an even stronger approximation of his energetic and unpredictable live shows. Still, his lyrical and musical prowess is miles beyond that of the coffee-shop competition, and that makes Noble Beast a welcome addition to his discography.” [Tiny Mix Tapes]
Shite album cover too.
I’m so into his last Bowl Of Fire album, and his Weather Systems EP, but every full-length he’s put out since then has disappointed me more and more. Which is funny in this case, because this album SHOULD be a return to Weather Systems form, but in the end it’s just kind of dull. Still one of the better live shows you’ll ever see, though.
@Marth: i might be the rare andrew bird fanatic who could take or leave weather systems (the swimming hour FTW). i loved loved loved armchair apocrypha, though.
@silkyjumbo: I am of the “Why doesn’t he play his violin more?” camp. It seems that on every album he hides it a little more and a little more behind his guitar and whistling and other stuff. It’s more present on this one than on Armchair Apocrypha, for sure, but it just seems to me that he’s denying where his best talents lie, for the sake of “legitimacy” or something like that–not wanting to be “that guy who plays the violin,” which he’s probably been most of his career. That and the songs just don’t seem fun anymore, which Swimming Hour and Weather Systems and Mysterious Production… all had going for them.
I’ve spent about a month with this record and while at first I found it a bit boring, it’s grown on me. Give it a chance, it’s quite good.
No risk, no reward. The weakest of his recent albums.