Noble Beast (2009)

Violinist and fancy whistler Andrew Bird is one of music's most prolific chameleons, having swirled through zydeco and swing before creating an exquisitely baroque genre for himself on 2005's The Mysterious Production of Eggs and 2007's Armchair Apocrypha. But Noble Beast veers off into a cheerily nonspecific world of jangly guitars and meandering melodies that evoke everyone from Okkervil River to Radiohead without ever making an impact of their own. By largely ditching beloved personal trademarks like exotic tonalities and that emphatic violin pizzicato, Bird's suddenly just another member of the flock. B

Download This: Listen to the song ''Fitz and the Dizzy Spells'' on the singer’s MySpace