Andrew Bird
Noble Beast
Album · Alternative · 2009
Andrew Bird has a way of making things seem easy. Such is the disarming sense of grace and confidence on the Chicago singer and multi-instrumentalist’s fifth solo album, it takes a while to note the complexity of what he achieves so casually. When he’s not fusing whimsical humour, swelling strings and a bossa-nova swagger on “Masterswarm”, he’s applying his signature croon to machine-made beats and fuzzier noises on “Not a Robot, But a Ghost”, or inventing his version of a pastoral-folk symphony in “Souverian”.