[Sep, 2008]  
[Aug 7, 2008] Washington Post: Andrew Bird is just another one of those world-class whistling, sometimes glockenspieling former child prodigy violinists-turned-chamber pop stars. Seriously, the dude whistles like Brad Ziegler gets double plays. It's like he's hiding a theremin in his mouth. He's an interesting choice for a show the size of Virgin Mobile Festival. His long and winding songs are all about subtlety. On a day that includes performances by Kanye West, the Stooges, Nine Inch Nails, Lil Wayne and Stone Temple Pilots, Bird will certainly stick out ...
[Mar 15, 2007] Time Out New York: [5 stars] Andrew Bird is too often recognized only for his whistling prowess and violin virtuosity. It’s true he makes otherworldly sounds with his lips and bow. but even more so than his excellent 2005 release, The Mysterious Production of Eggs, his new album is a testament to his superiority as a songwriter and metacultural commentator. Though its arrangements are intricate, Armchair Apocrypha reaches biblical proportions, using playful melodies and elegant analogies to highlight the quotidian nature of life’s great questions. Whether it’s cellular function or holy wars, Bird has a curious ability to address the most profound topics and still seem perfectly flip.

Despite it’s age-old subject matter, Armchair Apocrypha takes a contemporary point of view. On the snappy, pop-rock opener, “Fiery Crash,” Bird notes that it’s impossible to board a plane without thinking of September 11. He imagines our times through the eyes of future archaeologists on the pizzicato-laden “Scythian Empires,” citing objects such as “Halliburton attache cases” and “Scotchgard Macintoshes.” Elsewhere, Bird’s thoughts are metaphysical. “Do you wonder where the self resides / Is it in your head or between your sides?” he asks on “Dark Matter.” The penultimate track, “Spare-Ohs,” finds him acutely aware of the failings of human understanding: “Don’t speak about the cycles of life/’Casue your thoughts are so soft I could cut ‘em with a spork or a bride’s knife.” No wonder Bird closes the album with an instrumental that illuminates the mystery of life as no words could. -- Cristina Black
[Mar 2007] Music Week: A quiet, yet insistent, buzz has been building around multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird since the release of 2005’s brilliant The Mysterious Production of Eggs. Armchair Apocrypha betters that album, with an understated pop nous atop lush instrumental backing, featuring anything from archly-plucked strings to glockenspiels and what sounds like a bowed saw. A unique talent.
[Mar 13, 2007] The A.V Club: Click to read interview.
[Mar 7, 2007]   Spin: Like a beautiful and eerie dream, this stream-of-consciousness head trip blends tricky, delicious melodies and slippery lyrics, yet never lapses into annoyingly smug artiness. Having abandoned the violin-fueled, old-timey jazz of his ‘90’s work, Bird now plays the wild-eyed eccentric, delivering “Fiery Crash” and “Dark Matter” in a haunted croon (shades of David Byrne) that’s seriously neurotic and strangely joyous at the same time. The sprawling seven-minute suite “Armchairs” could cause dizzy spells.
[Mar 7, 2007]   Uncut: "Armchair Apocrypha finds Bird rushing ever upward, marrying the restive explorations of Eno with the chamber-pop playfulness of '70s John Cale. Itchy percussive tics, Eastern melodies, spectral background fuzz and carefree whistles fill out the sound ... a record dotted with peaks"
[Feb 16, 2006]   NPR's Song of the Day (Scythian Empires): Societies may be crashing down around him, but Bird makes the destruction sound more bittersweet and beautiful than apocalyptic
Read entire review
[Jan 2007]   The New Yorker – Critics Notebook: Apocrypha is a vast, optimistic album about depressing things such as falling planes and empires; it downplays Bird’s whistle and keening violin and sounds a bit more like progressive rock of the seventies, Bird’s ambitions place in a rough alliance with other artists who are writing long, complex compositions such as Sufjan Stevens and Joanna Newsom. Perhaps they are enlarging their songs in response to a world that has been dwarfing the charms of a three-minute single. Or perhaps they all know about the planetary alignment that’s due in 2008.