Andrew Bird – Noble Beast

Somewhere buried in Chuck Klosteman’s Sex, Drugs and Coco Puffs, there is a mini-essay about the sad fact that all of us will only be known for a few, mostly insignificant, insufficient facts that tell the world almost nothing of our true selves. I guess this is true. True, also, I suppose, for musicians. John Lennon played a piano in a white room and had round glasses. The Notorious BIG was fat and got shot in his car. Chris Brown beats up girls. Even indie artists face this destiny: Andrew Bird, yeah, he’s the guy who whistles and plays the violin.

Noble Beast, Bird’s newest full-length release, in a lot of ways, is his attempt to be known to the world as a man who can do more than whistle loudly and pluck some strings to a neat little melody. This is not to say that those qualities don’t appear on this record, but one can hear Bird taking many of the same ingredients and trying to make a whole new cake. The result is mostly delicious.

“Not a Robot, but a Ghost” and “Masterswarm” are the best examples of Bird trying to take a step outside the box built for him and show us what he can do with Latin-style beats, various computer noises, fuzzy guitars and hooks and bridges that land like trees in a windstorm. It would not surprise me in the slightest if someone decided to take his hand at remixing the dizzying beats of “Ghost” (which reminds me of a non-fat version of low-fat Radiohead tune) and I know for a fact that neither I nor any other critic has said that about a Andrew Bird track before.

The tracks above have a crowded, soiled feel, which is not true for most of the record. Most songs play like a ride on a skateboard on a smooth strip of sidewalk. The album artwork features a single tree in a overgrown field, which I think says a lot for this record. Tracks like “Nonemclature” and “Souverian” are allowed to slowly expand and rest and glide into the seven-minute mark without feeling like epics or absolute bores. “Effigy” is a romantic country waltz and the opening track, “Oh No” is a gentle pop ditty with enough bounce to push the album along, but not too much to make mellowest of mellow tracks a harsh surprise.
“Fitz and Dizzyspells” is a romping tune that keeps this album from being just a quiet reflection piece. To keep the cake analogy alive, this song, along with “Oh No”, is the flour and sugar – the things that make a cake a cake; the things that make a Bird album a Bird album.

I have never been a fan of Bird as a lyricist. For the most part, he has just been someone that I can listen to when I need something that will entertain most and offend none. But for this album, I tried to listen well to what Bird has to say and the way he says them. And I was pleasantly surprised. Bird creates odd imagery to speak about familiar and universal feelings. “Effigy” is about the seeming dream of our relationships, about feeling lovingly connected to our peers, yet somehow alone, scared that everything could slip away: “Fake conversations on a non-existent telephone, like the words of a man whose spent too much time alone.” “Nomenclature” is a beautiful tune about yearning for simpler times, but painfully aware that “Sometimes you have to pay to play with finger-paints and macrame” when the “colors have bled to grey.”

Nobel Beast is a good-sized step in a good direction. He did not pull a Shepherd’s Dog move and attempt a redefinition that moved too far too quickly. Musicians are just like us. They go through times when they question all that they are and all that they know, musically. Andrew Bird was wise in keeping enough of himself to make an album that personally progressive, appropriately sensitive and worth our fullest attention.