Rook

Shearwater

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 3, 2008)
• Original Release Date: June 3, 2008
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Matador Records
• ASIN: B0017R5UH8
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #12,895 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

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

By	Shamus Macgillicuddy (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews

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.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars is there an Eden?, December 28, 2008

By	bozo "boho" (somewhere in the mediterranean) - See all my reviews

I was traveling through Indochine - doing nothing - nothing much at all when I chanced across a music store and found this CD on their racks.
Being outta touch and outta place I was not expecting to find such a treasure - so recent and all - so far away from home.
So I forked out the necessary and took my foundling home - delighted.
Now I was WOW'd by Shearwater when I first discovered them some time back and over the years they have become a regular listen for me.
Each new disc being an evolutionary creation - a variation on a theme.
Nowt much wrong with that methinks.
Works of continuity and consistency - same same - but different.
Certainly no repetitive formula this.
Once home I hit the horizontal, plug in and relax - go where the music takes me.
Mesmerized and hypnotized by imagined magical soundscapes - the soundtrack to my natural world - the songs of my nature - the music of my life
All that I find calm and contemplative.
However conversely I often find myself taken to the edge of chaos and confusion, but there is pleasure to be found in the pain.
The calm before the storm followed by the sunshine after the rain.
Waves crashing to the rocks - before back-washing into the deep on the undertow.
Drowning/Drowned
Drowndead.
Rebirth/reborn.
Reincarnate
Sweet, soured vocals and honeyed, rasping playing compliment and contrast on this recording.
Now I am sure I will miss Will Sheff - but I am not for now on this outing.
Some will try to categorize this band (or is it a collective?); Folk? Americana? Indie? - but forget it.
Why bother - they just don't need it (sic) - and to pigeon-hole them does them no justice - they are simply unique to me and my ilk - and I hope they will be to you and yours too.
Now, I don't wanna spoil a good thing but, if references need to be made to help me help you understand where I think they're coming from, then I could do a lot worse than mention King Crimson, Robert Fripp, Talk Talk, Mark Hollis, Radiohead and Sugar Ros.
I hope I am not misleading you.
Whatever - this is a fine piece of contemporary music.
Does it take me closer to Eden?
Well, I like to think so.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hauntingly beautiful, June 15, 2008

By	Pedro Fernández (Las Vegas, NV) - See all my reviews

Shearwaters are said to be itinerant birds, sometimes covering distances in excess of 14,000 km. They glide blithesomely over the ocean, keeping close to the water, flitting their wings in a unique shearing motion to cut across wave fronts. The namesake of the bird, this band accomplish the staggering feat of encapsulating in this one disc the weariness and the languor of the shearwater. Every track adheres to a fairly predictable formula, but never to the point of linearity--it begins at a calm, leisurely tempo, mezzo piano, with wistful, delirious vocals and an almost calm-before-the-storm aura to it. Lead vocalist Jonathan Meiburg, a former member of the critically acclaimed Okkervil River, alternates between a quasi-falsetto and a subtle vibrato, his haunting, visceral baritone channeling Radiohead's absurdly talented Thom Yorke, consummate indie rocker Matt Berninger, of The National fame, and R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe--all at once.

As if that alone were not impressive enough, the instrumentals are not just solid, which is usually enough to get the chattering class--critics, that is--chattering; sometimes--in fact, most times--they outshine or are right on par with Meiburg's poignant vocals. Case in point: Rooks, track two. The song opens to some familiar sounds--those of drums--and some not-so-familiar ones--those of dulcimer strings pulsating against the sounding board, of a mallet gently striking the glockenspiel, drawing from it the slightest, most dramatic sound--all of which, as soon as Meiberg begins, harmonizes his voice perfectly... and then, midway through the song, it segues into this almost jazzlike woodwind solo as Meiberg's voice shifts to a rousing falsetto. It all figures up to an end product that, to invoke that tiresome phrase, is far greater than the sum of its parts. Indeed, as a previous reviewer remarked, "There's a feeling of alchemy to it."

Before this effort, even with their stunning fourth album Palo Santo, Shearwater were, with no intent to disparage, just an above-average crew of indie rockers. But with Rook, Shearwater have transcended indie rock and created music that moves and inspires, using familiar instruments and formulae to create something entirely new. Only the best bands can do this. And this, I think, is the album we will look back on a decade from now and say, "That's were it started!" It is the best album I've listened to so far this year and is almost guaranteed to make my top ten for 2008. Get this now. You won't regret it.