The Mysterious Production Of Eggs

Taking all the best parts of Jeff Buckley, Devandra Barnhart and Rufus Wainwright, Bird can be noisy, charming, frivolous, haunting and playful all at once.

The bar has been raised for 2005.

Genre mash-ups this ambitious aren’t easy to come by; albums that accomplish that goal with the effortless grace of Eggs are even rarer.

An eminently pleasurable album that reveals more with each spin. [Apr/May 2005, p.148]

The production is lush and detailed but the songs are strong enough to withstand all the fuss, making this a most ambitious and accomplished record.

What makes the album exceptional is its thematic unity and storybook approach. [#67, p.85]

Although The Mysterious Production of Eggs lacks the gleeful variety of Swimming Hour, it is obvious that Bird has created his most cohesive statement to date.

Peaks again and again. [11 Feb 2005, p.63]

It’s hard to say that Andrew Bird is anything but a master-songwriter, capable of penning a song for any sort of occasion. It was the hardest challenge, however, for Bird himself to understand this power and to control it. He’s finally tamed that quivering urge and, in the process released one really long perfect moment in adult contemporary pop.

The Mysterious Production of Eggs might wrestle with unsavory topics, but it does so with a shrug of the shoulders, a wry smile, and a heart full of awe-inspiring song.

It's a densely melodic place composed of layered instruments so intricately intertwined with each other and Bird's lyrics that repeated listenings inevitably reveal a hidden but grandiose vision of what a pop record can be.

He collides substances that shouldn't mix to create a sound that not only survives the impact, but thrives in the aftermath.

'The Mysterious Production of Eggs' is unmalicious, delicious classical indie with enough originality to mark it apart, and what it lacks in jaw dropping charisma it somehow makes up for with songwriting and instrumentation of the highest order.

Folk songs given a rarefied air by his elegant wordplay and multi-tracked chamber strings. [Mar 2005, p.108]

An incredibly compelling collection of inventive folk-tinged melodies.

Bird seems to have really reached a stride in terms of his overall sound and the result is one of my favorite albums of the year so far.

Possessing a richly elastic set of vocal chords, Bird is in league with such silver-throated singers as Jeff Buckley and Rufus Wainwright, but he rarely if ever over-emotes, a common criticism leveled at Buckley and Wainwright.

He shows off discreetly, underplaying his vocal chops and musical command, even his familiarity with scientific arcana--nay, his intelligence itself.... But discretion exacts a price in identity, clarity, and meaning.

Given time and a little effort, [his songs] begin to cast their own rewarding chamber-pop spell. [Mar 2005, p.98]