CD Review: Andrew Bird soars to his typical heights on 'Noble Beast'
by Joshua Bayer l Michigan Daily (U. Michigan)
Issue date: 1/21/09 Section: News
U-WIRE Eight albums into a colorfully protean career, Andrew Bird has yet to release a stinker, or even a moderately bad-smelling album. "Noble Beast" is no exception. But despite sporting a brawny lineup of consistently high-quality tracks, something about "Beast" feels a tad watered-down. Maybe it's the gnawing sense that, for the first time, Bird is primarily taking stock of the sonic territory he has staked out on previous albums instead of plowing forth into uncharted terrain.
This isn't to say that all of "Noble Beast" is self-derivative (and even when it is, it's mostly salvaged by Bird's keen ear for melody and impressively ornate strong structures). But Bird is at his whimsical best when he's spreading his wings. "Anonanimal" starts out frigidly beautiful, with arpeggiated violin plucks and achy strings evocative of a yawning ice cavern before it spikes off into a hard-edged interplay of frenetic drumming and proggy guitar searing. The track prickles with a gritty intensity that Bird has never explored before. Instrumental "Unfolding Fans" sleepwalks through a hazy chamber of zipper noises and trilled violin loops that shimmer with a captivating otherness.
Much of the album's experimentation comes in its inventive use of eclectic kitchen-sink percussion. "Not a Robot, But a Ghost" scuttles along on a rhythmic spiderweb of clinking silverware, treated static and what sounds like the shuffling of seashells. Labyrinthine standout "Masterswarm" clinks eerily on a crisply brittle texture of castanets, handclaps and washboard scrubbing.
On his more left-leaning tracks, Bird constructs baroque pop that truly lives up to the word baroque, erecting sprawling sonic mausoleums which invite the listener to get lost. This exploratory quality gives the album's avant-garde songs a high replay value, especially when coupled with the swooping flux of Bird's shapeshifting croon.
The drawback is that a handful of Beast's relatively standard-issue cuts come off as a bit vanilla in comparison with its more adventurous moments. "Effigy," while possessing a tenderly wistful refrain about "fake conversations on a nonexistent telephone" feels like a mere blueprint of the more compelling barnyard balladry on "The Swimming Hour." "Natural Disaster," though plenty pretty, sounds like it could have been an outtake from any of Bird's last three albums, lending it an expendable air. While these more predictable tracks are anything but bad, they do little to justify "Beast's" plump 54-minute length.
This isn't to say that all of "Noble Beast" is self-derivative (and even when it is, it's mostly salvaged by Bird's keen ear for melody and impressively ornate strong structures). But Bird is at his whimsical best when he's spreading his wings. "Anonanimal" starts out frigidly beautiful, with arpeggiated violin plucks and achy strings evocative of a yawning ice cavern before it spikes off into a hard-edged interplay of frenetic drumming and proggy guitar searing. The track prickles with a gritty intensity that Bird has never explored before. Instrumental "Unfolding Fans" sleepwalks through a hazy chamber of zipper noises and trilled violin loops that shimmer with a captivating otherness.
Much of the album's experimentation comes in its inventive use of eclectic kitchen-sink percussion. "Not a Robot, But a Ghost" scuttles along on a rhythmic spiderweb of clinking silverware, treated static and what sounds like the shuffling of seashells. Labyrinthine standout "Masterswarm" clinks eerily on a crisply brittle texture of castanets, handclaps and washboard scrubbing.
On his more left-leaning tracks, Bird constructs baroque pop that truly lives up to the word baroque, erecting sprawling sonic mausoleums which invite the listener to get lost. This exploratory quality gives the album's avant-garde songs a high replay value, especially when coupled with the swooping flux of Bird's shapeshifting croon.
The drawback is that a handful of Beast's relatively standard-issue cuts come off as a bit vanilla in comparison with its more adventurous moments. "Effigy," while possessing a tenderly wistful refrain about "fake conversations on a nonexistent telephone" feels like a mere blueprint of the more compelling barnyard balladry on "The Swimming Hour." "Natural Disaster," though plenty pretty, sounds like it could have been an outtake from any of Bird's last three albums, lending it an expendable air. While these more predictable tracks are anything but bad, they do little to justify "Beast's" plump 54-minute length.
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