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EDIT INFOAndrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha
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Album Details
- Artist: Andrew Bird
- Album: Armchair Apocrypha
- Label: Fat Possum
- Year of Release: 2007
- ME Rating:
- Reviewed by: dscanland on 2007-03-20
Media
RecommendWhy isn't Andrew Bird huge at this point in history? He was a member of the quirky retro swing group, The Squirrel Nut Zippers, who alone deserve much praise but now that Bird has reinvented himself as one of the foremost indie pop writers he deserves some attention. At this point I will mention his last, almost perfect, album The Mysterious Production of Eggs. I'll leave that one for you to discover in your own time but Armchair Apocrypha needs your attention now.
Some longtime fans may be scratching their heads at his decision to move from Ani DiFranco's label to the beloved Mississippi blues label, Fat Possum but it could be that Ani wasn't putting enough drive behind his releases, even though they were very well received critically. Again, I've warned you. If you don't at least attempt to listen to this album it will be on your conscience until his next album.
On "Heretics" is where things start to change. The vibe I get on this album is Stephen Malkmus but actually singing in key and with an amazing arrangement behind him. Ah, and he does some of his amazing whistling on "Dark Matter". Listen to that instrument. Simply breathtaking. "Plasticities" sounds like another example of Bird learning from Pavement. Some beautiful plucking of some instrument (thinking it is his violin). Andrew shows off his haunting falsetto on the fun "Simple X". It's a nice change of pace. Then a lovely orchestra seems to cut in for the brief interlude, "The Supine" before the ever-so-gentle "Cataracts" graces your ears. This is when Andrew is best compared to someone significant like Rufus Wainwright. Hopefully you've got the impression that this is a diverse album. Well, it is diverse and very cohesive. Something that is hard to manage at times.
Anyway, Armchair Apocrypha is one album that you need to seek out. 2007 is proving to be a good year with albums such as this leading the way.
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on 2011-11-01 CharlesMartel Said:
Chicago's Andrew Bird has gained a fair amount of acclaim for his work in the last decade and has managed to build up a loyal if small following of dedicated fans all across the world. His particular brand of what we may call indie folk appeals to the same sort of people who like Sufjan Stevens and Midlake. Therefore you might expect that, given my opinion of recent albums by both of those two artists, I am going to piss on this party. And you'd be right.
Frankly, this particular style of music is one which seems to have so little to say for itself that the protagonists seem barely able to rake up any enthusiasm for it themselves. There is so little passion, so little energy, so little of that joy which ought to come from making music that it should hardly be surprising that I get so little from it. I have often stated that music has to reach out to me, to hit a chord within me for me to really like it. And like Sufjan Stevens, " Armchair Apocrypha" can barely inspire with enough energy to get up out of my chair and change the CD in the player.
This is the same sort of eccentric indie which began with acts like Pavement and has continued down the years for well nigh fifteen or more years now. Frankly, it wasn't that clever when it started and it is pretty uninspiring now. Thankfully Mr. Bird refrains from the stupid or overly long song titles which bedevil many of his contemporaries but the results are hardly any more interesting. Sometimes you detect a decent lyric but it is delivered with such a lack of enthusiasm that any imagery it might conjure up in your mind is quickly swamped by an encroaching ennui. Sometimes the arrangements seem quite clever, but then they are swallowed back into a sink of blandness and sheer ordinariness that you quite forget they were there in the first place.
"Scythian Empires" is okay, but the rest of it is almost soporific. At times, Bird mumbles his way through the lyrics, at others, he whistles as if trying to fill a void caused by lack of something to say with a diversion. It is almost as if Bird has decided that his songs are just too clever for us ordinary mortals and that we should be grateful that he has deigned to put them out for us to marvel at. Well, sorry, but I just do not feel in any way obliged to justify an artists need for recognition if said artist is not prepared to put some feeling into his work.
Rating: 4/10
