Andrew Bird — Are You Serious?

The record jolts to life with a bolt of jagged guitar coming through the speakers in the form of a bluesy hook. I’ve been listening to Andrew Bird for almost 10 years ago now, and at no point in that time would I have guessed that one of his albums would ever begin like that. Compounding this experience was the fact that opening track, “Capsized,” was also the first single released from Bird’s seventh solo album, Are You Serious? Both decisions signaled a drastic change to Bird’s established musical identity, but the remarkable thing about those initial moments was how quickly they slipped into familiarity. It’s a testament to Bird’s musical skill and unique voice that surprises the hook from “Capsized” or the bleary, “cool jazz” guitar of “Truth Lies Low” get so quickly subsumed into his signature style. The many influences and idiosyncrasies that Bird has accumulated over his 20+ years of music-making all coalesce to round out one of the most eclectic and engaging artists of his time. Are You Serious? may not be Bird’s most cohesive album, but it’s certainly his most surprising, (dare I say it) fun, and ultimately poignant record in years.

It’s hard to know where to begin with Are You Serious? — which says a great deal about both its strengths and its weaknesses — but I’ll start with “Truth Lies Low.” That track, in many ways, most perfectly encapsulates the balancing act the record engages in over its lean 42-minute runtime. The song begins with cool jazz/bossa nova guitar that initially jarred me as a veteran “Birdwatcher.” Then, as the brushed drums kicked in and the track’s texture filled out with Bird’s reedy tenor and expert violin work, the jazziness of the intro began to feel essential. It weaves in and out of the Bird’s signature indie-chamber-folk-pop sound in a way that’s simultaneously fresh and familiar. “Truth Lies Low” is a grooving, chilled out track unlike anything I’ve heard from the Chicago born and based artist. It’s as if he’s realized that he’ll never be able to turn off his brain long enough to truly sell simple, relaxed folk music. Instead, he’s augmented his love for Appalachia with blues, jazz, and rock to get to a version of the laid back vibe that works for him.

On Are You Serious? you feel the influences Bird is working with — ranging from calypso and jazz to art music and blues — but he never strays so far away from his own style that the music ceases to be uniquely his own. The upshot of this eclecticism, though, is that Are You Serious? often comes off as an amalgam of several albums going at once. There’s the bluesy/jazzy record with “Capsized” and “Truth Lies Low” on it, then the quintessential Andrew Bird album found in the likes of “Chemical Switches,” or even the expansive chamber pop album suggested by “Valleys of the Young” and “Puma.” Last, but not least (and my favorite theoretical meta-album in Bird’s oeuvre), is the delightful Paul Simon tribute album that can add Are You Serious?’s “The New St. Jude” to Break it Yourself’s standouts “Danse Caribe” and “Orfeo Looks Back.” There is a TON going on in Are You Serious?, and that can be overwhelming, especially on first listen. If you fight through the initial shell shock from so many genres and influences coming through at once, though, the rewards are immense — maybe greater than any Andrew Bird album to date. Missteps like the garbled, stylistically overstuffed “Saints Preservus” are far less common than triumphs like “Left Handed Kisses” — a skillful blend of folk rock, tongue in cheek country music, and soaring, emotional chamber pop. Bird’s “take all comers” approach to genre-influence on Are You Serious? is ambitious, but his supreme musicianship and unflappable melodic talent carry the day more often than not.

The album’s climax, and arguably it’s best song, is the stunning “Valleys of the Young.” To this point the biggest knock against Bird — as he self-deprecatingly acknowledges in both “Left Handed Kisses” and “Are You Serious?”— is his relative inability or disinclination to emote. His lyrics are remarkably intelligent, witty, and often genuinely insightful, but rarely do they let you see into him as a human being. To a certain extent, Are You Serious? centers on addressing Bird’s predilection towards guardedness; he moves from coy, relatively obtuse songs like “Puma,” through the self-flagellation (delivered by Fiona Apple) on “Left Handed Kisses,” to the raw and humbled “Valleys of the Young.” The track begins with the startling lyric “Do you need a reason/We should commit treason/And bring into this world a son?” What follows is a rumination on love, parenthood, and the ennui of youth. It’s an incredible song — one of Bird’s finest to date—but it’s particularly striking from him because, at 42, he seems to have decided that polite emotional distance can only carry you so far. “Valleys of the Young” is so meaningful and cathartic that it seems almost a disservice not to allow it to carry the listener out of the record. The sweet, unassuming coda, “Bellvue,” is a fine closer, but can’t help but feel like a bit of a comedown after the towering highs of the album’s penultimate track.

Are You Serious? is an example of how incremental change can yield quietly radical results. It still has the off-kilter singing/whistling/violin/glockenspiel combo for which Bird is known and could never be mistaken for any other artist’s work. But it’s obvious that he has come such a long way from the folk/swing music of Bowl of Fire and the dreamy orchestral pop of his early solo work. Are You Serious? makes 20 years of artistic evolution visible and, while it can occasionally be too eclectic, represents a culmination point in Bird’s career. It’s messy genius that solidifies everyone’s favorite whistling violinist as one of the finest and most unique artists of his or any other generation. Whether you’ve followed Bird from the beginning or you’re just getting acquainted to his music, Are You Serious? is a remarkable record worth your attention.

Essential Tracks: “Truth Lies Low,” “Left Handed Kisses,” “The New Saint Jude,” “Valleys of the Young.”

8.4/10