From Andrew Bird's graceful voice to Armchair Apocrypha's cover art minimalism or a 'less is more' approach is ever present in this album. I will be the first to admit that a photo of a bird on the cover of an Andrew Bird album is as cheezy as Warrant's "Cherry Pie" analogy, but the simplicity of this photo is a simple and powerful representation of Bird's music. While I say that Armchair Apocrypha takes a minimalist approach, what I mean by this is that the instrumentation of the album is not overrun with synthesizers and electric guitars, but only with what seems at every given moment just the right amount of noise producing devices (including Bird's whistling). It is a good thing that Bird does not choose to overpower his music with noise as his lyrical prowess is second to none. I picked up Armchair Apocrypha after the new year but if I had this album before making my 2007 Top 10 Album list it would have easily snuck into the mix. Furthermore, the song "Scythian Empires" would easily have made my 2007 Top 10 Songs list with "Plasticities" not far behind at all (both very good songs). (8.5/10)
Andrew Bird - "Scythian Empires"
Andrew Bird - "Plasticities"
Andrew Bird - "Heretics"
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