New Sondre Lerche, "Heartbeat Radio"

Sondre Lerche seemingly catapulted from small-time success to big-time stardom after being featured as the soundtrack to Steve Carrell's film, Dan in Real Life. His orchestral pop conjured images of old-fashioned simplicity for folks who are a bit older, and a subdued version of Beirut and the like, for those of us who are a bit younger. Here in 2009, Lerche embarks upon his latest adventure, which will most likely be his best-selling album to date, The Heartbeat Radio. As always, a lot of fun instrumentation going on within this, the title track, "Heartbeat Radio," and it seems that the singing style has changed ever-so-slightly. Where I'd once compare him to more of a pop crooner who happened to have classical sensibilities, I'd now beg to differ a bit, and group him more towards the Andrew Birds of the world. Maybe I'm wrong, but for some reason, the first 30 seconds reminded me very much of Armchair Apocrypha. Check it out for yourself though over at Stereogum. The Heartbeat Radio is out September 9th via Rounder.