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Album reviews Music

This Bird has Flown

Rating: NN



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Tribute albums are a tricky undertaking, particularly when they feature really, really well-known songs. You’ve gotta honour the original meaning of the material but add nuances by injecting personality into a song without making the interpretation all about the artist who’s covering it. Sadly, the indie-skewed performers who take on the Beatles here don’t always pull it off. Eleanor Friedberger offers a disastrous Dylan impression on the Fiery Furnaces’ Norwegian Wood, the Donnas heap cowbell on top of their mediocre, straightforward stab at Drive My Car, Rhett Miller whines through a twangily pallid Girl, and Ben Lee gamely strums and sighs to deliver a faithful, if dull, In My Life. The best tracks build on the psychedelic undertones that the Beatles were starting to play with on Rubber Soul – Sufjan Stevens moves beyond his customary fey folkiness with a crunchy, trippy full-band What Goes On, Low’s Nowhere Man is nicely haunted, and Ted Leo’s I’m Looking Through You is awesomely wacked out. Still, too many misses, not enough hits.

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