All very interesting, but, ultimately, superfluous, for as you strain your way through placid album opener “Anonanimal” to the meandering nihilism of “Natural Disaster”, most people, myself included, will find anything to keep going back for. Yes, the same one as Santogold, Boy Crisis, Amazing Baby and MGMT.
Here’s another useful fact: he went to Wesleyan University. I would like to make it clear at this point that I have a lot of respect for Andrew Bird, he is one of the most talented instrumentalists I have ever encountered, having been trained in the fastidious “Suzuki method” of music, and is able to hit, strum, pick and play an unbelievable plethora of instruments.
Some may reply to this that quality is more important than “being the next big thing”, and I would agree with them, but the simple fact surrounding “Noble Beast”, due to be released January 20th, is that it is painfully mundane and somewhat reticent it would seem that Andrew Bird, no doubt an exceptionally skilled musician and multi-instrumentalist, has fallen into a comfortable rut of songwriting that is likely to placate his hard-core fan bases’ need for another album brimming with shimmering folk rock, but unlikely to excite anybody who owns anything by Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes or Bob Dylan. Is Andrew Bird the future of music? Quite frankly… No.
