If you’re willing to hear yet another version of “Auld Lang Syne,” Hark! is a worthy addition to your holiday rotation.

Andrew Bird at the Schnitz was a reminder that not every show is going to connect with everyone.

What separates My Finest Work Yet from his other albums, outside of the cheeky title, is a lack of a central theme.

[xrr rating=3.5/5]Andrew Bird is one of those intense musicians who merges classically trained technical chops, confident cross-genre improvisation and an intuitive feel for processing sounds through loopers and other toys. Whether whistling, singing or playing violin or guitar, Bird effortlessly creates music of tasteful complexity. He’s also quite prolific. Like Prince or Robert Pollard, he seems to constantly record himself, …

(Photo: Jason Stoff) The soft-spoken 22 year-old British folk songstress Laura Marling began her set at Portland’s Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall with a simple, “Hello, my name’s Laura” as she slung the strap of her acoustic over her shoulder. Finger-picking nylon strings, Marling launched straightaway into “The Muse,” lead salvo off last September’s A Creature I Don’t Know while a …

[xrr rating=4.25/5]With their shifting arrangements, unexpected mood swings and lyrical tendencies towards darkly humorous, somber or otherwise fatalistic subject matter, many of Andrew Bird’s songs feels like a great jumbling of the senses or having one’s bearings disoriented. It takes time for listeners to gain firm footing in a Bird tune; this is meant as a compliment to be sure, …

Five years allows albums to mature like fine wine or be forgotten like a tasty Happy Meal. We learned this lesson last year with our Best of 2004 feature. When coming up with this feature, the question the Spectrum Culture staff pondered was this: “How well do these albums play NOW!” Not five years ago, but how have they aged …

It was an interesting study in musical contrasts at the Pageant Sunday night. Opening act Heartless Bastards specializes in something that can best be described as a thrillingly bastardized form of garage blues-rock. The band’s music doesn’t so much nudge listeners awake as grab them by the throats and thump them upside their heads. No points for subtlety here; lead …

Andrew Bird Noble Beast Rating: 3.5 Label: Fat Possum Though none of Andrew Bird’s previous releases can be characterized as straightforward, Noble Beast is probably his most challenging and least immediately accessible record to date. Previous efforts like Weather Systems and The Mysterious Production of Eggs usually offered guideposts that suggested where the songs were heading; even though these songs …