Are You Serious

Even if you’ve hated Bird for the past twenty years, Are You Serious is the kind of record that is so breathtakingly alive and enjoyable that you should take the time to listen and consider rethinking your stance on him as an artist.

It's accessible, creative, and honest- everything art wishes it could be.

Are You Serious will likely end up as the “Andrew Bird Grows Up” album, even if it annoys him. But there’s beauty in the honesty of that evolution.

There is some devastating music on Are You Serious, and there is some beautiful music, too; often these passages are one and the same. It sounds like a natural progression for Andrew Bird, yet in places it’s like nothing you’d expect from the singer. It is, for these reasons and many more, a triumph.

He may not be reinventing himself with each album, but his songs are so rife with double meanings and flourishes, there's always a lot to unpack.

Laid-back philosophies punctuate this album, which again suggests a kind of bemused contentedness with life. There's nothing too highfaluting or over-stretching, though musings are thought-provoking enough.

Generally, these songs set out to strip away some of the artistry and leave Bird more exposed, and as the heart-swelling sentiments of the closing song Bellevue show, it suits him well.

Iit’s an album that’s just as much indebted to love as a symptom as it is interested in it as a phenomenon.

Are You Serious is a mature and confident record that finds Andrew Bird exploring myriad new sounds while remaining instantly recognizable.

A lifelong troubadour whose wandering ways have seemingly found some respite as a Los Angeles family man, the native Chicagoan cracks open the door and reveals himself in a way that manages to strike an elegant balance with his more cryptic tendencies.

Are You Serious is goosebump thrilling and deeply moving. It's also warm and funny, even in its darkest moments. [May 2016, p.93]

In its own way, the album is as tied to a central concept as his last few recordings, but here that concept is presented in a more expansive, more enquiring way.

Are You Serious isn’t perfect by any stretch, but on this record, Andrew Bird has compiled 11 good songs. Every track is well-produced. Every track has competent lyrics. Every track is melodically solid. Every track exhibits Bird’s impressive performing abilities (the things he does with a violin are incredible). Every track is individually memorable.

Though the album has its moments of treaded water, the majority welcomes back the musician whose depth, curiosity, and high-brow intellect won us over in the ‘90s.

Still curious, still appraising, Bird offers an intellect remarkably porous to change.

Are You Serious contains more modes than songs, a diverse collection held together by Bird's voice and violin, and the sheer energy of the music.

As ever, he showcases a poetic turn of phrase and hopscotches across a dizzying array of styles. [May 2016, p.69]

Lacking the ready-made hooks of 2005's The Mysterious Pro­duc­tion of Eggs, the bookish baroque pop of Are You Serious proves the fiddler's iconoclasm lies in his technique's novelty.

A collection of songs of pleasing weight and completeness, their musical joints expertly dovetailed, their detailing crisply hand-carved. [Jun 2016, p.108]

Ultimately, this is the strongest Bird has sounded in some time, but it’s not quite the monumental breakthrough that’s going to find him new fans.