Shearwater: Golden Archipelago

Label: Matador

Is it as good as 2008’s Rook? Don’t be greedy – albums as good as Rook just don’t come along that often. But it’s a tad better than Palo Santo, the first Jonathan Meiburg-centric Shearwater album, and finds him continuing his intense focus on nature and humanity’s interaction with it, and on the bloody cruelty from both sides. This time the focus is on islands, partly informed by Meiburg’s father’s military service in the Pacific. Musically, it’s an album of extremes: “Corridors” rocks as hard, and as loudly, as anything in the Shearwater catalog, but elsewhere the quiet bits are even more hushed and intricately orchestrated than in the past, with turn-on-a-dime shifts from pianissimo to fortissimo. Extending the dynamic dichotomy, Meiburg’s falsetto is a riveting whisper and his whooping full voice an inspiring war cry. Note that the vinyl includes two bonus tracks not on the CD and comes with a free download of the album, while the CD (at least for now) includes a deluxe booklet expanding on the themes found in the songs (LP buyers get this as a PDF file). (Steve)