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The songs structures in this album are ambitious, the instrumentation is powerful, and tracks are filled with unexpected turns and twists. What makes this album remarkable though is how organic and natural the entire ordeal is. That’s why I can’t think of a more appropriate name for this collection of songs than Noble Beast. The ambition of Bird’s latest work is tempered by the underlying sophistication that he’s so well known for.

Let me be blunt – this album is pure brilliance. The experience will be different for everyone, many will hear different textures and hear different emotions. Admiteddly, sometimes the mood of Bird’s music is too complex to even grasp what the mood is at first, but that doesn’t mean the music itself is. The complexity just results from the convergence of all the different styles that Bird walks us through. Listening to the album, it could just as easily be a singer songwriter from Eastern Europe as it could be one from Chicago. And even within American styles Bird has fluid diversity – and let me emphasize fluid, because these songs flow like water. Nonmenclature for example starts off with sounding like a collaboration between Paul Simon and Zachary Condon (Beirut) and later on morphs into what is arguably an Andrew Bird translation of Radiohead.

The highlight of the record is just over halfway through, with the song “Not a Robot, but a Ghost.” Bird and his companions have actually found a way to make their trademark whistle sound intense and passionate. His ability to evoke such strong passion in the most bizarre ways are what make this record so worth listening to. “Not a Robot, but a Ghost” is an epic song about – a breakup? So the rumour goes. The instruments used in this song are too many to name, and in many cases difficult to even decipher.

This album genuinely puts hundreds of other folk albums to shame. There’s just no other way to put it, you really do need to hear it to understand why.

Masterswarm by Andrew Bird
Not A Robot But A Ghost by Andrew Bird

I saw the film today with a few friends…more along the lines of doing something as I am admittedly never much of an Iron Man fan in my childhood. With the good reviews, I obviously did not protest seeing the movie at all. The movie itself was good but not great in my opinion. There are some funny moments and it the best part of the movie is the creation of Iron Man itself it follows the difficulties of Jason Stark to actually make a superhero. The graphic and special fxs are really cool and seeing the Iron Man itself is probably one of the cooler super hero moments. Robert Downey Jr. is a believable superhero unlike other superhero’s who are always looking to “serve and protect” and are stuck up bitches…Iron Man has much more personality. The problem that lies in this movie from making this “great” is that the plot is quite non-existant…nothing really happens in the movie. I can sum it all in a few sentences and there are certain points that take away from the movie like the sex with the reporter. An addition problem which my friends pointed out was that there wasn’t really a villian to make Iron Man that “super hero”. I secretly love villians and heels (in wrestling). The problem is that he had an enemy and was more against the destruction caused by war. By villian I mean someone you can feel for and can understand why he/she is evil…that duality is a key aspect I look for.

This movie seems to be more prepared for a sequel and like I said, it’s a good movie but not great. It’ll produce a few laughs and some cool action scenes but if you’re expecting “the great fucking thing ever” you’ll be disappointed.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

I was not that keen on the soundtrack so like last week, I’ll make my own. (You can find the actual soundtrack here)

1. Iron Man by Black Sabbath (I have to put this up)
2. MX Missiles by Andrew Bird
3. Start A War by The National
4. Killing Armies by Wolf Parade
5. Put Us Back Together Right by Headlights
6. The Great Escape by We Are Scientists
7. Fire It Up by Modest Mouse
8. You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine by Death Above 1979
9. Know You’re Enemy by Rage Against The Machine
10. One Man Army by Our Lady Peace
11. Air War by Crystal Castles

As far as expectations go, I think the only expectation was that it had to be funny and anything extra was a bonus. I guess I guage how funny a movie is with the type of laughter I usually give off. In the case of movies if it’s able to get me laughing like a girl…it has done its job. I will say that some jokes were way too silly that it got unnecessary though the racial jokes and debunking of stereotypes was definitely a highlight. The storyline was a bit cheesy and the jokes make the movie worthwhile. One character also had me annoyed and being overthetop stupid (forget his name but he’s the guy in the trailer making the North Korea + Al Quaeda joke). However the movie knew how to be cute/romantic yet funny at the same time so it wasn’t all drug-filled silliness.

Overall, you got what you paid for which was lots of laughs and stupid storyline or not, it had its moments. 4 out of 5.

As for the soundtrack, it wasn’t too bad with the song that stuck out the most was Mickey Avalon’s My Dick as it played after the “bottomless” party. I think the soundtrack was alright, the hip-hop tied well into the movie the only thing I hated was the use of Boyz II Men It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye. I just didn’t think it tied into the movie and the movie doesn’t need serious “sad” moments.

Anyway here’s my playlist for the movie:
(for you Googlers, the actual soundtrack list can be found here)

1. My Dick by Mickey Avalon
2. Amsterdam by Peter, Bjorn and John
3. I Gotta Run by Everybody Else
4. It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career by Belle & Sebastian
5. Stupid and Shallow by The Futureheads
6. A Better Son/Daughter by Rilo Kiley
7. Kissing In The Grass by Of Montreal
8. Because I Got High by Afroman
9. Banking On A Myth by Andrew Bird
10. Southern Comfort by Arrah and The Ferns
11. Vanished by Crystal Castles
12. Stoned Again by The Evangelicals
13. People You Meet by Bishop Allen

I could explain the meaning of each song if you don’t get why I put them in, just leave a comment and I’ll gladly respond.

This playlist was REALLY hard to think of. I didn’t have any tracks that included “leap” and that makes me sad lol.

1. Drift Away by Uncle Kracker (only title in my library with “drift” as our calendar would drift off if there were no
2. I Stand Corrected by Vampire Weekend (the point of leap years is to correct our calendar as approximately 1 year has an extra 6 hours)
3. Calendar Girl by Stars
4. Hours That You Keep by Maritime
5. Pace is the Trick by Interpol
6. Common People by Pulp (Doesn’t a leap year wish it wasn’t the black sheep and be a common year?)
7. The Happy Birthday Song by Andrew Bird (February 29 is arguably the coolest day to have a birthday on!)
8. Holla, Holla by Ja Rule (other then Saul Williams there aren’t many other musicians with February 29 as a birthday)

Only 8 tracks but enjoy!

The album Armchair Apocrypha displays Andrew Bird’s smooth voice but I’m not sure I am digging this album as much as his last release The Mysterious Production of Eggs. The lyrics are challenging for me as I have no idea what he’s trying to say in most songs and I have no idea what it relates to. This album is great to falling asleep to but it’s not something I can listen to endlessly.

While some songs like Fiery Crash I learned to really like, there doesn’t seem to be another Heretics where I am singing along to and while this album is probably much deeper then what I could ever understand I simply can’t give it a rave review.

I give this album 3.5 out of 5. It was given a 81 Rating on Metacritic which is excellent but I’m not sur everyone would like this as it is a tough listen (for me anyway).

Listen below to stream Fake Palindromes my favourite of Andrew Bird’s songs. Or use the link here.