Rook starts out as the most delicate thing your ears have ever heard: Johnathan Meiburg’s haunting tenor moving fluidly over a classical piano line. That’s how it ends to, but in the middle, for about 30 seconds, the tension erupts in such a way that can only be described as frighteningly orchestral. Listening to this album in bed on a still, dark, night is the best thing you could do for yourself. It gives you the opportunity to soak in one of the most beautifully theatrical records I have heard in quite some time.
Most frontmen of Indie Rock bands are not singers, they are songwriters who had to learn how to sing so their songs could be shared; Johnathan Meiburg is a singer. He is a singer in the same way that Antony, Rufus Wainwright, and Chris Garneau are singers, not in the way that Spencer Krug, Britt Daniel, or Will Sheff are singers. His operatic and ghostly tenor is one of the most immediately disarming voices I have ever heard from a non-classical vocalist. It’s completely undeniable and it couldn’t be better served than it is by the rich grand piano, chaotic horns, delicately tremelo’d guitars, and soaring strings of Rook. I could go on, but i’d rather shut up so you can listen to the beautiful composition below.
Rook is due out on Matador (6/3). Pre-order it here. (Highly reccomended)
[mp3] Shearwater – On The Death of the Waters
See Shearwater’s tour dates here.
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