Andrew Bird's Noble Beast

Singer/songwriter Andrew Bird came to the ranks of indie-rock with an entirely different point-of-view and his own unique musical baggage. A classically-trained violinist since he was in short pants, Bird's early work was more likely to quote Bertolt Brecht as Chuck Berry, and his skilled use of stringed instruments and penchant for complimenting his wistful vocals with a whistled melody made Bird a welcome oddball among the legions of hirsute, guitar-strumming, sensitive male folkies inhabiting the indie-rock sphere during the early part of the '00s.

Noble Beast is Bird's fifth solo album since leaving his vaunted late-90s band Bowl of Fire, and his second for Fat Possum, a label once better known for its Mississippi Hill Country blues releases, but now earning a reputation as the home for enlightening and eccentric music created on the fringes of the rock 'n' roll mainstream. Noble Beast is, in many ways, the logical follow-up to Bird's critically-acclaimed 2007 album Armchair Apocrypha and, as such, delivers much more of the same.

If anything, Noble Beast seems to match the pastoral innocence and gentle vibe of Armchair Apocrypha with even grander instrumentation and moments of excited enthusiasm. "Fitz and the Dizzyspells," for instance, reminds of a similar bunch of '60s-era merry pranksters, Kaleidoscope. Bird's lofty vocals float above a jangly soundtrack of chiming guitars, psychedelic sounds, gorgeous harmonies, and bits of odd sound. The song manages to bring the musical diversity and childlike innocence of late-60s psyche-folk into the new millennium with a bang.

On the whole, Noble Beast is filled with such charming and thoroughly engaging moments that creep into your consciousness and mesmerize one's senses in spite of efforts to otherwise dismiss them as mere wan sprite singer/songwriter drivel. "Effigy" opens with a vaguely Celtic violin riff and echoed rhythms before beautifully-crafted Spanish guitar breaks in behind Bird's warm, assured vocals. With the vastly underrated Kelly Hogan providing backing vocals, the two different voices spin a multi-textured and simply enchanting yarn.

On the other hand you have the slightly discordant "Not A Robot, But a Ghost," its sound like that blaring from a scratchy old 78rpm record, but with a modern technological edge, and as close to a free-falling rock song as you'll find on Noble Beast. Bird's vocals are slightly askew, sitting at a sharp angle from the backing instrumentation, with just a hint of Hogan's voice in the background, shadowing…or perhaps stalking, Bird's vox as the song's instrumentation is a mix of light-and-dark, from exotic Gypsy strings to dark-hued movieland soundtrack. It is both a maddening and entirely intriguing song.

Andrew Bird is a singularly unique talent. I'd put him in a league with folks like Ry Cooder and David Lindley (who, coincidentally, was also a member of the aforementioned Kaleidoscope), talents creating intriguing and challenging music that allows them to pay the bills by writing film scores (which Bird has also done), but who seldom break through to any sort of mainstream success. But that's OK, 'cause while the indie-rock community has pretty much embraced Bird right now, it is those few listeners who expect to be surprised by albums like Noble Beast that will support Bird's efforts in the future. (Fat Possum Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Noble Beast from Amazon.com)