Shearwater - Rook
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Free Music Notes for Rook
Free Music Review: Another Stunner From Shearwater
Hit: 5 Stars
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.
Free Music Review: A Fantastic Album
Hit: 5 Stars
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.Free Music Review: Deeply Felt and Deeply Beautiful
Hit: 5 Stars
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.
Free Music Review: Beautiful
Hit: 5 Stars
Isn't it a pleasure to find oneself mesmerized by an album? Shearwater's beautiful and masterful disc, "Rook," has soul. It's a 2008 release, but the record is one of my top picks of 2009-better late than never! Anyway, this art-rock album is rich with musical dichotomies, at once quiet, but cloaked with a buoyant passion. I've hardly heard anything like it. Honestly, how many albums have you seen endorsed by Scientific American?! The primary composer and vocalist, Jonathan Meiburg, happens to be an ornithologist, and you may recognize the natural world in his musical reflections. Meiburg's haunting falsetto is at times reminiscent of Tim Buckley, Thom Yorke and Nina Simone, but Shearwater is a unique bird. One of the stellar journeys on the album, "The Snow Leopard, " unfolds from plaintive piano melodies performed by Meiburg, accompanied by rhythm guitar, cello, a bit of brass, and rocked by a minimalist, kick-heavy power drummer. Check it out.Free Music Review: Eerily beautiful
Hit: 5 Stars
So haunting....and so unique. Check out their website to hear a couple tracks in their entirety, and then you will want to get this CD. I just bought my husband 6 new CDs (after hours and hours of research) and this is his favorite! This is the best chilling music! It is just like a dark fairytale. You will be taken away to another world. His falsetto is out of this world. I would describe their sound as Jeff Buckley, Coldplay, and Radiohead. But, they are totally their own sound!
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