“Heretics”
from the album Armchair Apocrypha
2007
iTunes
MP3 – “Heretics” [right-click/save-as]
“Heretics,” from Andrew Bird‘s forthcoming Armchair Apocrypha, is simply arranged, trading in his signature intricate string lines for one lilting lead violin and a stomping drum march. But even his simpler songs have delicate flourishes: a quick bongo beat makes a guest appearance over the brutish drums, and background vocalists follow the same smoky violin line behind Bird’s lead vocal. Bird’s low, controlled voice never fully cuts loose (has it ever?), but he doesn’t need soaring theatrics to get his point across: One smirk is enough for a line like, “Be careful when you’re done/ You’re bound to get post-natal.”
Bird is a trader in understatement, a provocateur who broadcasts ridiculous edicts in subdued fashion. Lines like “Thank God it’s fatal” and “Are we not having fun?” share the same 16 bars while the singular earnest violin leads on headway through the ether. Trading his usual elaborate instrumentation for candor, Bird never forgets that his greatest strength is his poise, which retains its composure without being dispassionate. Perfect phrasing swims in tandem with Bird’s characteristic sense of melody, soluble and graceful as all his music is, and even as Bird complains, “Now we don’t wanna hear the sound of a drum,” the chorus kicks home on the strength of a rather loud one.