Andrew Bird's music has always lingered on the verge of inscrutability, but in Noble Beast he seems to have crossed over the line while reaffirming his status as a cult indie phenomenon.Here's the thing: I absolutely loooove Andrew Bird. So it pains me to note that Noble Beast can best be described as a musical study of Etymology, Entomology, Semantics, and the Ontology of Mathematics. Take, for example, "Masterswarm," which includes such lines as,
flailing fetal fleasOr, in "Oh No," Bird sings, "in the salsify mains of what was thought but unsaid / all the calcified arhythmitists were doing the math."
feeding from the arms of the master
burrow into me
and this is sure to misspell disaster
Oh and the young in the larval stage
Okay, so maybe I am exaggerating about the album's subject material. Musically, "Oh No" is sweet, even quietly beautiful. "Effigy"'s two introductions are a sophisticated introduction to a thoroughly enjoyable song.
But despite the album's instrumental clarity, Andrew Bird's esoteric lyrical references make for a difficult listen. In "Tenuousness," we might imagine Bird singing instead
"Tenuous at best was all he had to say when pressed about the rest of it,Time to put Noble Beast in the "background music" file and move on.
the album*** that is"
Andrew Bird - Oh No
Andrew Bird- Tenuousness
Buy Noble Beast from Amazon.com
Andrew Bird's website/myspace
***(This is my insertion, the original text reads "the world that is")
Labels: Andrew Bird, review
Give TGH a thumbs up!
Finally got this record. I've been enjoying it so far. Sure, the lyrics make no sense at all but oh how they flow! (I'm thinking particularly of the first verse of "Tenuousness").
I haven't absorbed the whole yet, but musical bits and pieces, beats and hooks, have been bouncing through my head since I first pressed play--which I figure counts for something, yes?