Rook

Shearwater | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 3, 2008)
• Original Release Date: 2008
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Matador Records
• ASIN: B0017R5UH8
• In-Print Editions: Vinyl  |  MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #111,988 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. On The Death Of The Waters

2. Rooks

3. Leviathan, Bound

4. Home Life

5. Lost Boys

6. Century Eyes

7. I Was A Cloud

8. South Col

9. The Snow Leopard

10. The Hunter's Star

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

On their breakthrough release Rook, Shearwater provides each number with more dimensions than most bands demonstrate on entire albums. The Austin quartet's follow-up to 2006’s Nico-inspired Palo Santo springs to life with "On the Death of the Waters," which unfolds like a sleepy ballad, swells into an orchestral maelstrom, and contracts in a cluster of minor-key piano chords. Like the best opening tracks, it commands attention, but "The Snow Leopard," where they combine the grandeur of Sigur Rós with the flamenco-inflected heartbreak of Forever Changes-era Love, serves as the centerpiece of this ecologically-oriented song cycle. Singer/ornithologist/ex-Okkervil River keyboard player Jonathan Meiburg, who recalls folk troubadour Tim Buckley, and collaborators Kimberly Burke, Howard Draper, and Thor Harris work their magic through evocative imagery, modulated vocals, and fluid instrumentation. The opposite of ragged and spontaneous, the four-piece occupies the more rarefied realm of the theatrical and the cinematic, and it comes as little surprise to find that 2008 also marked their first foray into features (indie romance In Search of a Midnight Kiss plays out to Shearwater’s mournful melodies). Augmented by 14 guest musicians, Rook unfurls like a dream, a poem, and the soundtrack to a flickering old film about lost frontiers. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description

Austin's Shearwater return with the follow-up to "Palo Santo". "Rook" meditates on man's intersection with the natural world; the world after human beings are gone. A dark fairy tale encased in a cycle of songs. Jonathan Meiburg's bold, soaring voice still anchors the songs, which broaden his pastoral prog-folk chaotic celestial mindfuckery into new realms. Beyond the continuing touchstones of late Talk Talk, Nico, and John Cale, there are now allusions to Van Morrison and hints of Joni Mitchell. All set in a newly lush sonic gorgeousness of harp, strings, and woodwinds atop the magnificent rhythm section.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Stunner From Shearwater June 3, 2008

By Shamus Macgillicuddy

Format:Audio CD

The folks in Shearwater continue to play by their own rules, with songs that inhabit evocative, complex arrangements--painfully beautiful, haunting even. Jonathan Meiburg's words have the same sense of deepening mystery that the band crafts so elegantly into their music, and his singing is stunning, swelling from a gentle falsetto into a resonant shout in a flash.

Although the lineup includes familiar instruments like the hammer dulcimer and the banjo, this band breaks beyond the confines of "roots music"--here, old sounds create something entirely new, using traditional music in novel and unexpected ways. There's a feeling of alchemy to it. The music grows and changes as you listen, like a shifting image, a kaleidscope. It strongly recalls Talk Talk and Mark Hollis, as well as Thomas Newman's film scores.

I had the opportunity to see Shearwater perform ROOK live in its entirety last month, and there was awe in the audience at all the talent up there--the members of this band are brilliant instrumentalists, and Meiburg is a truly riveting performer. I was thrilled to find that same energy captured so effectively on this CD. It's a treasure.

This is hands-down one of the albums of 2008. There's simply nothing else out there like it. If you have not explored Shearwater yet, get started. You'll be richly rewarded.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fantastic Album December 23, 2010

By J. Smith

Format:Audio CD

The piano is a defenseless instrument. You can't carry it with you from your home. No one plays it in the subway tunnels for money. There was never a man who has run and danced while playing it. The very nature of the piano is to sit yourself up against a wall with your back to the room, leaving yourself exposed and fragile. And the sounds that echo from it are just as vulnerable. Trembling strings hidden in the box cry out with the collapsing keys, like children in their beds during a thunder storm. Shearwater understands the fantastic creatures that live in the heart of a piano, and they gently coax them out into the light for Rook. The melodies they play are wonderful, magical, and beautiful with a sinister undercurrent. The songs rock you to sleep and then wake you up just as some beast tries to drag you off into darkness. The songs sail off into a deep purple sunset, and then vanish into dense fog and a full moon. And it does all of it while slowly winding piano strings around your wrists and ankles. It's so gentle that you will hardly realize you are bound until the end comes and you find yourself hidden deep inside Meiburg's piano.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Deeply Felt and Deeply Beautiful April 23, 2010

By Sherri Priestman

Format:Audio CD

What I love most about Shearwater is that the music is sincere, deeply felt, and serious--I for one am completely over the ironic urban hipster motif that has dominated the indie scene for too long. This was the first cd I listened to of theirs, and I played it over and over, each time transported to the world it created. It truly is an album and deserves to be played in its entirety, not just a collection of singles. I've heard Shearwater referred to as prog folk, and this seems as apt as any genre assignment I've heard.

For me, Leviathan, Bound is one of the most haunting and eerily beautiful songs ever written or sung, but Snow Leopard, Home Life, and Rooks also stand out. There's not a bad song on this. If you want to rock out, or you prefer lyrics of the sardonic and detached variety, then probably Shearwater isn't for you. If you hate falsetto or find it tiresome, you'll no doubt find too much of it on Rook. Otherwise, you should give Rook a try. You might find yourself captivated, as I have.