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Shearwater weren’t what you’d call a secret, but the acclaim and attention that they’ve somehow ducked for years has finally caught up with them, thank god. Their musical direction over the years has evolved and twisted, moving from hushed and occasionally melodramatic folk on their first record and snuggly pushing into the more artful and strange world of operatic-pop where we find them now, for their first proper full-length for Matador entitled Rook and their fifth album in all.
And while they’ve touched on many musical themes, including alt-country (Jonathan Meiburg, lead singer and songwriter seemed confused about this early designation, but one listen of “Military Clothes” should put all doubts to bed), their newest album is their most firm statement of musical purpose yet. Entrancing, beautiful alternately soft and hard in all the right places, it also has the bite and unflinchingly somber vision we’ve come to expect from Meiburg’s compositions and, especially, the way his lyrics burrow into the sometimes resplendent, often gritty human psyche.
While former collaborator and songwriter Will Sheff left the band for 2006’s Palo Santo, meaning it was a departure from the split-songwriting duties that enhanced but did tend to confuse occasionally on earlier albums, Rook is a more enjoyable and consummate vision than its predecessor. Palo Santo was all rough edges and difficulty swirled in with the melodies, but Rook closes in on the band’s most delicate instincts instead of shying away from them. And it might be a strange place to start discussing a record, but the closer, “The Hunter’s Star,” is so ripe with understated and smart arrangements bowed to Meiberg’s soft croon that it perhaps fits that mold better than anything else on the record.
That’s not to say that Rook glides through nothing but the swells of strings and prettiness – no Shearwater release yet hasn’t had its share of dissonance and urgency. “On the Death of the Waters” comes to an aggressive crescendo just two minutes in, and the galloping near-title track “Rooks” and standout number “Leviathan Bound” trade in the sort of uneasy catchiness that the band cultivated so early on. Thor Harris’ drumming, as per usual, only serves to prop up and enhance the mood and feel of the melody, and perhaps no other drummer in the sloughed-off rock genre has the careful appreciation for restraint that he does.
Meiburg, as every piece written about this band must include, is deeply invested in ornithology, and everything from the band’s name to lyrical metaphors have taken shape as the winged creatures living above and with us. But the natural world creeps in Rook in other ways as well, as “The Snow Leopard” and through the cosmology of “The Hunter’s Star.” These themes translate well into songs about longing and searching, the complex outer world that we can spend our lives scrutinizing, trying to edify, but ultimately just have to approach with an open sort of wonder. Rook isn’t the sort of record that uncovers all of its secrets at once, and a lifetime of listening to it is sure to conjure up many, many conclusions. But that’s a good thing – Rook is an album you won’t tire of revisiting.
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Great review. Awesome album.
They're playing at Waterloo this Wednesday at 5:00 PM; definitely worth checking out.