ZenDoctorOG

The Swimming Hour is my favorite album to come from The Bowl of Fire. It’s very different from Grandeur but some songs still retain the musical stylings from the album. The Swimming Hour is one of Bird’s most eclectic album and acts as a transition into his solo work. With the dance and jazz genres popular in the 90s from his previous albums falling out of style you can hear Bird experimented with many different sounds throughout The Swimming Hour. However, none of the songs on the ... read more

Some of Bird’s best work during his time in his Bowl of Fire. Oh! The Grandeur, in my opinion, is a much more polished album than Thrills. Not so polished as to take away from the feel unique to Andrew Bird albums. Its musical influences are much more eclectic compared to the album made a year prior (Thrills). In just a year you can see how Bird’s focus has shifted. The album also continues to transition from telling stories of characters to more personal works. As with many of ... read more

Two years after releasing his solo album (Music of Hair), Andrew Bird became the front runner of the Chicago-based swing ensemble: The Bowl of Fire, and created Thrills, a bold departure from the style of Music of Hair featuring drums, more vocals, features, and horn instruments. A couple of the songs take on the musical stylings of Jason Webley’s Against the Night, accidentally of course, as well as the typical jazz and blues of 1930s New Orleans. The album features reprises of two songs ... read more

As the first ever Andrew Bird album and being completely done and released by himself, naturally it will be lacking compared to his later works, but I think it accomplishes what it set out to do. I think some of the first songs on the album are pretty amazing but as track list continues, the songs start to sound more similar to each other, which in this case it just doesn’t work well for me. The biggest plus that the album has is clearly and undoubtedly Bird’s awesome violin skills, ... read more