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As a whole, the album doesn't stand up quite as well as The Mysterious Production Of Eggs, but it's still another solid entry in Bird's discography.
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Making no palpable effort to crack the conventional with overflowing melodies and love songs, Bird instead latches up the intellect to create tiny packages of literature that make always leave you thinking--and snapping your fingers at the same time.
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Armchair Apocrypha, is as instantly engaging as "Fake Palindromes" from 05's Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of Eggs.
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BlenderThe music's intellectualism obscures as many truths as it unveils. [Mar 2007, p.130]
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The strength of this album lies in Bird's ability to write challenging, evocative lyrics, and then wed his erudite prose with joyous melodies.
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Andrew Bird has thrown down his gauntlet brimming with post-structural imagery, swirling entropy, a truly floral arrangement of genre pieces and genre mixing.
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This is an intellectual jaunt that reveals the beauty of pop music, both musically and lyrically.
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Bird’s intelligence – and obvious delight in the associations that words seem to make on their own – often places his lyrics in the precocious high-school poet camp.
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Entertainment WeeklyOccasionally he overreaches... but when Bird keeps things simple, Apocrypha is full of modest charms. [23 Mar 2007, p.59]
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Armchair Apocrypha is a wonderful record.
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MagnetApocrypha feels of a piece with Eggs, though without as many layers or as heightened a sense of playfulness. [#75, p.91]
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MojoOverall, the album might not surpass his masterpiece The Mysterious Production Of Eggs, but Armchair Apocrypha proves Bird's knack for the musical hat-trick. [May 2007, p.102]
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This album proves that Bird is up there with the kings of US alt.country pop like Lambchop and My Morning Jacket.
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His songwriting style remains largely unaltered: eloquent, abstract, stream-of-consciousness rambles, tiny bits of which manage to lodge themselves in your brain. But his talent is most apparent as a composer.
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Paste MagazineOn Apocrypha... Bird may be simultaneously at his most clever and most luminous. [Apr 2007, p.55]
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Armchair Apocrypha is ultimately another object of strange and unique beauty from this inventive songwriter and performer.
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This is a record that will so quickly get under your skin and fill your head with such a bounty of melodies that the only way to relieve the swelling is to joyously whistle them out.
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By taking the piss out of himself and the cynicism out of his outlook, Bird’s songs are not only smart and sensible but joyous and full of hope.
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The songs on Armchair Apocrypha are broader, more sweeping in content and delivery than their immediate predecessors.
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Q MagazineIt could be horribly contrived, yet Bird has the rare touch to make it sound as natural as breathing. [May 2007, p.125]
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Seemingly simple elements -- plucked violin, shuffling snare drums, chiming guitars, plinky piano, his spooky croon and magisterial whistle -- build into one heady, slippery whole.
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The arrangements are lovely, as always, but it’s Bird’s openness (as opposed to his inscrutability) that pays the greatest dividends on this exquisite, resonant work.
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The opaqueness of Bird's lyrics doesn't exactly jibe with this more mainstream musical approach.
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SpinThis stream-of-consciousness head trip blends tricky, delicious melodies and slippery lyrics, yet never lapses into annoyingly smug artiness. [Mar 2007, p.88]
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The experimental, lo-fi branding of his oeuvre is gone, but the originality of his sound continues to trump the nostalgic demons in his head.
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Bird has developed a finesse for off-kilter pop that takes mortality, confusion, and unexpected realizations as its subject, shaping them all into songs that are catchier, by their own terms, than most of Top 40 radio.
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It's a knock-out.
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Although Bird certainly isn’t breaking new ground in terms of his overall sound since his last album, he has still put out another solid record chock-full of witty lyricisms and lilting melodies that do a wonderful job of showing off his oh-so-smooth voice.
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UncutA record dotted with peaks. [Apr 2007, p.93]
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Under The RadarWhat the songs might lose in pluck and idiosyncrasy, they gain in depth and craft, still letting Bird show off his rakish voice and trademark violin ripping. [#17, p.90]
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Armchair is a bit more accessible and less subtle [than Eggs], less of a single statement, but with more individual standouts.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 74 out of 81
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Mixed: 2 out of 81
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Negative: 5 out of 81
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Oct 17, 2011
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LarsP.Sep 24, 2007
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DanB.Sep 5, 2007