Andrew Bird - Noble Beast
Andrew Bird has been making albums since 1996, but only really came across our radar with 2007’s magnificent ‘Armchair Apocypha’. A collection of spellbinding, erudite songwriting beautifully performed and produced. As a result, expectations for ‘Noble Beast’ are pretty high hereabouts but sadly it disappoints. It’s hard to put ones finger on exactly why, the songs are intelligently written and well sung but somehow the collection lacks whatever mysterious factor that made ‘AA’ so great.
First issue, I think, is the whistling. On ‘AA’ Bird’s distinctive whistle was an unusual piece of punctuation scattered sparingly through the record. Here, however, it is far more predominant and gives the listener the uneasy feeling that somehow they’ve slipped on a James Galway record by accident. Secondly, there’s not a single track that stands out in the same way that songs like ‘Fiery Crash’ and ‘Scythian Empires’ did on the last record. That’s not to say there aren’t some strong moments here, it’s just they suffer in comparison to what has come before.
First up is ‘Oh No’ which opens with that whistle, which is off putting from the start, and then proceeds to have a somewhat odd lyric about ‘calcium ions buried deep in your chest’. Not the strongest of starts. This is followed up by ‘Masterswarm’, nearly seven minutes of gently swinging ballad underpinned by syncopated handclaps and some nice string arrangements, but again features the bloomin’ whistle.
Things pick up a bit with ‘Fitz & Dizzyspells’. It’s got more of a groove to it and is quite catchy, but again with the whistle!! You can tell I’m getting quite hung up about this can’t you? There’s no doubt he’s an accomplished whistler, but is it really necessary on every track? Too much of a good thing, Andrew, too much.
At 54 minutes running time the album feels longer than the sum of its ideas. A number of the songs feel overly padded out; ‘Effigy’, ‘Tenuousness’ and ‘Souverian’ all feel extended beyond where they should be. Tellingly one of the strongest tracks is also one of the shortest. ‘Nomenclature’ is an epic builder across its three minute duration with a great vocal and strings interplay.
All in all, ‘Noble Beast’ is a pleasant listen, full of nice moments but suffers from not reaching the high standards set by its predecessor. And too much whistling.
Top Tracks: 'Masterswarm', 'Nomenclature'.
Released 02/02/2009 on Bella Union