Shearwater - Austin

Jonathan Meiburg (of Okkervil River) Will Sheff (of Okkervil River) Howard Draper Kim Burke Thor Harris Shearwater has transformed itself to the point of reinvention on Palo Santo, the band's fourth album. The first Shearwater release to be made up entirely of songs by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Meiburg, Palo Santo resembles previous Shearwater albums only incidentally. It's a thrilling, paradoxical record--icily warm, welcoming and threatening, sloppy and immaculate. The austere folk that was a trademark of previous Shearwater records makes periodic appearances in Palo Santo, but thorny forests of static and distortion have sprouted up to occasionally obscure it. The band also channels previously unheard influences; the driving staccato piano of "Seventy Four, Seventy Five" recalls early John Cale, and some of the record's more disorienting soundscapes could inhabit the same strange continent as Nico's Cale-produced classic Desertshore. "La Dame Et La Licorne" suggests Talk Talk covering "Madman Across the Water"; "Failed Queen" a grotty three-way orgy--circa 1970--between the Velvet Underground, the Incredible String Band, and Meddle-era Pink Floyd. "Wh... more...