New Release Tuesday: Shearwater, Blonde Redhead & Bright Eyes

Shearwater Palo Santo Remastered, Expanded (Matador)

The release of Palo Santo in 2006 marked Jonathan Meiburg's emergence from the shadow of the 'O' into full light. The songs are dense, revealing themselves slowly and carefully amidst moments of reflective sincerity and emotional cacophony with equal precision. Shearwater's sound is difficult to pin down, but the songs are always centered around Meiburg's unfaltering voice, a dark but lilting instrument that narrows the gap between fragility and power with ease. The remastered reissue of Palo Santo is a welcome revision for familiar fans, and will likely serve as a proper introduction to the songs for newcomers, thanks to Matador's involvement and John Golden's remastering. The double CD offers new versions of some of the songs, a bonus disc with outtakes and demos, and stunning artwork that confirms our suspicion that buying CDs will never go out of style.

Shearwater "Red Sea, Black Sea" (new version, mp3)
Shearwater MySpace
Shearwater Official
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Blonde Redhead 23 (4AD)

It's hard to discuss 23 without mentioning how far Blonde Redhead has come musically in the last twelve years, and it's worth noting because the development has been a fairly interesting one. The traditional Sonic Youth comparison still stands in many respects, since the common thread between all of the band's transformations is their noisy, damaged art sort of vibe. On 23, however, the noise is less dissonant and more cohesive. The album plays well with the band's comfort zone with ample use of feedback, multi-tracked vocals and cinematic layers. If they've refined their sound, it's because they're tightening the belt on their universe, not creating a new one.

Blonde Redhead Official
23's Website
Blonde Redhead MySpace
Blonde Redhead "23" (YouTube)
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Bright Eyes Cassadaga (Saddle Creek)

Though we typically try to reserve well-tempered judgment and thorough, proper reviews for non-NRT pieces, occasionally we find ourselves unable to keep from discussing the arguable intrigues of the albums we feature here. That being said, we stand before you confounded: this is the seventh Bright Eyes record? Really? Cassadaga is like Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach: there's no joke-stone left unturned, we've got the point, but somehow we know there's going to be a part 6. While we praise Blonde Redhead for taking a tried and true formula and fostering it into a polished revision of its former self, the same doesn't seem to hold true for Oberst's syllogisms. It's impossible to convince the listener that the album finds him more mature and worldly in his 27 year old skin when the themes are plucked from bad MySpace poetry and dressed in pretense. Production-wise, Cassadaga succeeds, with producer Mike Mogis helping disguise the fact that Oberst's novellas made into songs demean the music by unjustifiably taking priority.

Bright Eyes Official
Bright Eyes MySpace
Bright Eyes "Four Winds" (YouTube)
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