Andrew Bird isn’t complaining, he’s narrating his coexistence with life’s downsides. The distinction between the two is exhibited perfectly on “Break It Yourself,” a vaguely conceptual album full of mellowy-folk infused with peeled-off-a-blue-cottage-wall daydream sounds, courtesy of Bird’s incredible versatility with a violin and a backup band that epitomizes musical chemistry.

I’ll get my one complaint out of the way – he could have made it tighter (with 14 tracks at one hour, it becomes a game of patience in the second half), but saying that feels like wishing a long Sunday afternoon to be shorter. This is an album that needs some room to breathe.

With poetic lyrics full of fragmented stories and poignant ruminations, it’s easy to miss his more biting lines, like in the kindly sarcastic “Eyeoneye” (Go ahead and congratulate yourself…/Made yourself invulnerable/No one can break your heart/So you break it yourself) or in “Lusitania,” his WWI-referencing duet with St. Vincent (You lay your lines along your shore/Through my heart you’ve ripped and torn/We don’t study this war no more). And that’s the key to unlocking the deeper beauty of these songs – while the whimsy of the instrumentation can be wonderfully distracting, it’s packaging something far weightier.