Andrew Bird’s “Noble Beast” available for preview streaming on NPR
On Tuesday, Andrew Bird’s new album “Noble Beast” will be released, but I already listened to it a few weeks ago. (apologies for posting this kinda late, I meant to share… just never got around to it).
NPR Exclusive First Listen makes entire (yet-to-be-released) albums available for streaming. You can listen to the entire thing, or each individual track. It’s totally fabulous.
I enjoyed “Noble Beast”, although having only given it one background listen, I want to spend some more time with it before giving an official report.
You can find it here.
I also want to give the new M. Ward “Hold Time” a listen, it won’t be released until next month. I’ve heard mixed early reviews. I honestly have been most impressed with his covers. I respect his talent and enjoy the sound of his voice, but haven’t fallen completely in love with his songwriting. I am willing to give it more of a chance certainly. I haven’t spent a great deal of time with him yet and I’ve been told I would really love his last album, so I might need to get on that. (I’ve only listened to some of it here and there.)
And one of my favorite-favorite guys ever – Bruce Springsteen has new album coming out called “Working on a Dream” which will also be available for streaming on Monday. I have to admit, I’m not fond of the title. However, it features “The Wrestler” as a bonus track, the song written for the Darren Aronofsky film of the same name. From what I’ve heard, the song (and the film) sounds pretty awesome. They all can’t be Thunder Roads and Rivers, but Bruce rarely completely lets me down. Even the sound of his voice on the more boring songs makes me happy. His writing is incredible earnest, even when I don’t personally connect to a tune, it doesn’t make it untrue.
