Bird uses “Hands of Glory” to play the violin

By Jake Saunder

The seventh studio album from virtuoso violinist and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird, “Hands of Glory,” was released Oct. 30 and deserves a greater fanfare than it received.

The album opens quietly with “Three White Horses” setting off toward the horizon. Slowly, together and in line with one another, they trot the syncopated drum taps.

We enter the next song in an echoed stagger. What feels tame rocked melody becomes a rhythmic folk undulation presenting itself in rather old country ways, though amidst the present wild. “When that Helicopter Comes” feels uncannily anachronistic in appearance and verbal arrangement, though it settles cordially with the windy theme of the string procedure.

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Running into “Spirograph,” the listener finds the measure equally steady and driving easy. The echoed distance howls lulled voices and soothes the ears of those rapaciously hearing.

The album gallops gallantly into the traditional piece “Railroad Bill.” Bird’s take endears classical sounds of arranged violin. We find a tale of explanatory character exploration that today discovers contemporaries alike. The chorus teems about as the howls wind and the violin screeches the dancing feet methodically.

Among the halfway point, we find Bird’s signature violin pizzicato — the plucking of violin strings as one would the guitar – and we feel the nostalgia of early work with 2009’s folk rock oriented “Noble Beast” as well as the 1999 swing-music styling of “Oh! The Grandeur,” Bird’s second album. “Something Biblical” refines his style whilst possessing a fresh tale encountering his lauded violin skill.

Nothing short of driving and brilliant was the previous track as it too overflows into “If I Needed You.” A modestly contemporary track, it features three-part harmonies and stilted guitar strums. The ever popular use of violin continue to rage about the canvass, joyously, pleasantly, wonderfully.

Entering “Orpheo” sings the reminiscence of “Give it Away” from Bird’s previous album “Break it Yourself.” However, it gently plays apart from it and remains the most placidly composed song from the album. A lovely tune of an instrumental majority, it ends with a pleasing vocal falsetto matching perfectly the vibrato of the violin.

Finally we have journeyed far off enough from where we had started, and now we satisfyingly reside “Beyond the Valley of the Three White Horses.” The plucked violin introduction of the finale leads into an around of bowed violin harmony in overlain texture.

We find an upsurge, a swelling of instrumental sound as the crescendo rides easily into the airy distance. It mildly clamors in a melodic way, never disagreeable as it begins its fade into an echoed hymn. It swirls the dust and gradually beats until it is left resounding rather ominously and yet lightly enough to grin and fathom and understand.

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The violin works its way into the prime vein of Bird’s featured piece and rarely falls wayside. It combines the ambiance of the electric feel with a customary quality as it rises and falls with hands that are uniquely sound in glory.

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