There’s a sentiment in “Eyeoneye,” the first single from Andrew Bird’s seventh solo offering Break It Yourself that chases a level of see-through sincerity the Suzuki-trained (by ear) violinist-cum-rocker really hasn’t chased before:

You’ve done the impossible now
Took yourself apart
Made yourself invulnerable
No one can break your heart
So you break it yourself

For an artist who broke with a swirling atmospheric song about palindromes and quirky apocalyptic visions saved by the presence of snacks, breaking one’s own heart for the sake of art is about as purist as it gets. That’s not to say that Break It Yourself is Bird’s Heartbreaker. There are still trademark looping interludes, literati references to Greek Mythology and one token eight-minute arm-stretcher of pizzacato violin play. But for fans of Bird, and general fans of folk-rock boundary pushers, it’s certainly his most straightforward peek into the land of his pastel, whistle-themed Oz.

Recorded in his fabled Western Illinois farm with longtime drummer Martin Dosh, guitarist Jeremy Ylvisaker and bassist Mike Lewis, Bird also takes production duties this time around, further making this his own. Though Noble Beast improvisational maestro he is not, here. Instead boiling down the formula into hook-driven pop leanings, routinely plucking his violin like a guitar, weaving his whistle in tight, controlled bit parts, and sometimes opting for the guitar solely, as on aforementioned single “Eyeoneye,” that’s so rock-swoony it could be a Smiths’ cut.

When combined with Bird’s new approach to lyricism, sometimes that window to that Bird Oz is wiped almost crystal. The bluesy “Lazy Projector” and its final two-step charging verse, “I can’t see the sense in us breaking up at all.” While the cymbal-washed country-flared Annie Clark (St. Vincent) duet “Lusitania” has the two harmonizing over the line “Go ahead, say something dumb boy, there’s no shame,” at a painfully-beautiful sun-drenched pace. Or the crowning career achievement that is “Orpheo Looks Back,” presenting Bird’s cryptical whimsy – a Greek Myth about a dude losing the love of his life – in its most accessible sing-song form to date, layering thick swaths of strings along a hip-driven reverb plucky ride to the great colloquialism that is not looking back:

Why do our eyes keep streaming?
Is it to see what lies behind ’em?
Through the shells of empty buildings and great columns of glass
They say you don’t look
They say you don’t look
‘Cause it will drive you mad
And if it drives you mad
If it drives you mad
It will probably pass

Has Bird successfully broken his own heart? If so, has he fully heeded his advice of looking forward and not back? There are a couple tracks too many that get in the way of this vision, the sleepy barebones “Sifters,” and the metaphorical bee tale of “Desperation Breeds” that opens the record could take a back seat. But otherwise, Break It Yourself does what it says and says what it means, while still etching the print of the Bird.