Pay no attention to that letter grade; it doesn\u2019t matter. Andrew Bird\u2019s newest album Noble Beast<\/i> has been assigned a grade because the Daily Vault requires it and they require it because every other<\/i> critical outlet does. At least the Vault has the decency to place the grades at the bottom of the review so readers are encouraged to read<\/i> before seeing the sometimes deceptive or misleading grades.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake; Noble Beast <\/i>is a good record.<\/p>\n
As Andrew Bird\u2019s newest solo studio album, Noble Beast<\/i> — above all else — is a testament to the whistling multi-instrumentalist\u2019s strength as a writer, a player, and producer. Like all Bird records, what listeners will find here is a phenomenally cohesive project overflowing with innovation and ambition. Intimately recorded acoustic guitars, sophisticated use of electrics, stunning violin work, and Bird\u2019s own strikingly perfected whistling are all united here for a tour de force of determined and fine-tuned musical aptitude. Top all that with Bird\u2019s exceedingly pleasant vocals and what you get in the end is a record that solidifies the songwriter as one of Noble Beast<\/i> starts out strong with the immensely likeable \u201cOh No\u201d and presses forward from there with the deliciously Jose Gonzalez-esque \u201cMasterswarm.\u201d The uppity \u201cFitz And The Dizzyspells\u201d is a welcomed precursor to the slow-burning and mostly filler of a track \u201cEffigy,\u201d which leads straight into the excellently executed \u201cTenuousness.\u201d Alas, where Noble Beast<\/i> suffers is in its overstuffed track listing. Fourteen tracks in all, there\u2019s too much to sift through here, and in the end fifty-four minutes is simply too much of a commitment for which to ask given the album\u2019s overall strength. <\/p>\n Nobody\u2019s calling Bird\u2019s talent to task, but somehow his final products always seem to play out like a coffee shop albums or Sunday morning house-cleaning music. Perhaps he\u2019s in need of some self-editing, perhaps not. That\u2019s for you to decide. Noble Beast<\/i> isn\u2019t a C+ effort in the grand scheme of things, but this is pop music and so Bird must be measured against his contemporaries. <\/p>\n It\u2019s only a C+ in the 2009-fast-changing-popular-music-world sense. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":29772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8356],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-41380","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-andrew-bird","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41380"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}