Baroque-Pop musician Andrew Bird has had a string of consistent, well written albums for the past decade or so. His latest, Break It Yourself, continues that string of consistently great albums. Bird comes off as a better Ingrid Michaelson, who can get really repetitive and unsympathetic (Honestly, she’s getting really boring and a little too personal on her albums. Can we have an album that isn’t mostly heartbreak? Seriously?). While Bird visits those themes, they’re well written, well sung, and surprisingly well recorded.

A great portion of this album was recorded in Andrew Bird’s barn studio, just outside of Chicago. The album surprisingly doesn’t have a lot of post production on it, which is stunning in it’s own right. It also marks the third with a backing band consisting of Martin Dosh, Jeremy Ylvisaker, and Mike Lewis; these four have great chemistry as musicians and it shows in the song quality that’s put out.

The subjects of Bird’s songs deal mostly with relationship issues, but they’re done in such brilliant and poetic ways that anybody would be jumping at the bit to write lyrics like this. In the song “Lazy Projector,” Bird likens a break up to a bunch of memories, poorly put together, and making for a bad movie. “Lusitania,” becomes a historical relationship metaphor, and we all know what the sinking of the Lusitania caused. “Give It Away” may be the albums most brutal exposition of a relationship, and may be it’s most personal song. Bird likens this person to “a nation with it’s worthless currency” and talks about the subject “giving it away for free.”

With Bird’s very poetic and stunning lyrics, as well as a songwriting prowess to die for, he’s a double threat. This album is his best since Armchair Apocrypha and quite possibly his best to date. You owe it to yourself to check out this album!

Album Rating: Buy It on CD or Vinyl

Listening Co-efficient: Active Listen.

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