Top Ten Albums of 2009 - #5
Andrew Bird's Noble Beast [Limited Edition]

This may come to a surprise to long-time readers, who might remember that I pegged this as having the potential to be in the top 20% of the year end list. But this is the point at which I start really picking apart the contestants. For me, the measure of an album is very much related to the material which proceeded it. And while NB has a couple of the best tunes that Bird has ever written, the album as a whole suffers from a slightly disjointed sense of the whole, particularly when compared to his last album.

I feel like the instrumentation lends itself more to the label "pop," with the violin taking a decidedly back-row stance in many of these songs. Maybe it's because he let his virtuoso side roam so freely in the limited edition disc; maybe that's why that disc exists at all - it's either to appease us or to appease himself. Either way, the combination of the two is much greater than simply the sum of the two halves.

Look up his performance for pitchfork.tv at Cemetery Gates and tell me he's not the most talented person you've ever seen.