Armchair Apocrypha
by Andrew Bird

From Komorebi-D 02/19/2017 13:22 | #185934

This is a thing of absolute beauty.It takes you on journey and let's you see glimpses of the world through the instrumentation. Considering that this album is about to turn 10 and Andrew is a violinist adding guitars into the mix, this record ages extraordinary well.

"Armchair Apocrypha" is an album full of sublime moments, fun rockers, meandering opuses, and the more than occasional use of high vocabulary and historical reference. While it may not tread as easily as "The Mysterious Production of Eggs", in many ways, this record is bolder, more challenging, and more rewarding. The acoustic underpinnings of "Eggs" is replaced with biting electric tone while the sometimes tepid and shambling drums/drum machines of "Eggs" a pleasantly lost to Bird's collaborator Martin Dosh who uses his percussive skills to breathe fresh live throughout Bird's style. The first half of the record is pure masterpiece with highlights "Plasticities", "Imitosis", and "Armchairs". And Although the second half slows down too much, the songs are pleasantly slow burning thanks to their lyrics and musical detail. This is all rounded out by "Spare-ohs" which is the perfect end-cap that flows into the instrumental outro "Yawny at the Apocalypse". Do listen. Do listen more than once.

The best document from a supremely unique talent. The violin, the whistling, the voice... nearly every track is sublime in its own way, culminating with the lovely "Spare-ohs".

From ptaylor1989 01/26/2013 17:04 | #62882

This album is lyrically dense (in a great way). It addresses history, science, has a great instrumental piece at the end that solidifies this as a semi-spiritual experience. VERY GOOD ALBUM, instrumentation, whistling, so on, and so on

From astelioeswills 01/12/2013 13:43 | #61175

great album

From paladisiac 12/09/2011 19:25 | #32514

This guy knows how to put an indie folk rock song together with many witty twists of phrase. Opener "fiery crash", one of the highlights on the album, is aptly apocryphal, stating "G force is twisting the faith with superstition / A fatal premonition / You know you've got to envision / The fiery crash" which is "just a formality". Delicate "imitosis" and its intricate plucking states "And despite what all his studies had shown / What was mistaken for closeness, was just a case of mitosis" where petri dish germs are swinging fists at the human race. The hits don't end -- a sole string intro to "plasticities" reveals "This isn't our song, this isn't even a musical / Think life is too long, to be a whale in a cubicle / Nails under your cuticle" where andrew pulls his version of new porn & multiple choruses. "heretics", "dark matter" and "scythian empires" are the other main highlights.

From Freddie55 12/23/2009 02:48 | #7798

Really lovely music arrangements with the violins. Unfortunately, a lot of the time it sounds like Andrew is singing with his mouth closed and I can't make out the lyrics. Maybe his lips got tired from all the whistling?