Rook takes King

Shearwater's Palo Santo came out around this time in 2006 and I immediately loved it. I'd never gotten into vocalist Jonathan Meiburg's Okkervil River as much as I'd wanted to, but Shearwater provided that middle ground I needed to get footing. As discussed seemingly ad nauseum here and elsewhere, expectations can be a bitch, for lack of a better term. In the case of their new album Rook, consider them annihilated.

The places Palo Santo displayed grit and emotion, Rook shows restraint and patience, building an impossibly beautiful framework of billowing guitars and delicate falsetto. Both band and album named after different birds, this recording has wings like few could ever hope to possess. It glides along on the updrafts effortlessly before diving thousands of feet towards earth, cutting off at the last moment, just because.

Listen:
Leviathan Bound
The Snow Leopard
[from Rook|buy]