After making a name for himself in the short-lived swing revival of the late '90s, Andrew Bird ditched the traditional jazz and blues he cut his teeth on and began making his own intricate and sweetly melodic solo albums. It's a little bit of a surprise to see that his next album, "Armchair Apocrypha," is coming out on the Fat Possum label, which made its name releasing bloody raw blues albums by folks like Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside. But the label switch doesn't seem to have affected Bird's sound. "Heretics" is just as beautifully idiosyncratic as his earlier material, with a swirl of Eastern-sounding violin lines and some delicate guitar dancing around the vocal melody.
-- D.M.
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