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Track Listings
| 1. On The Death Of The Waters |
| 2. Rooks |
| 3. Leviathan Bound |
| 4. Home Life |
| 5. Lost Boys |
| 6. Century Eyes |
| 7. I Was A Cloud |
| 8. South Col |
| 9. Snow Leopard |
| 10. Hunter's Star |
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
As much as I like Okerville River, I believe Shearwater's new album Rook beats any of their albums hands down. Powerful and melodic Scott Walker-esq vocals blended with beautiful cinemascope haunting sounds, Rook is one of the best albums of the year with each song leaving you yearning for more. If you like them and this album, you have to see them live! They are AMAZING live. Even better than in the studio, really great band, lovely album. My stand out track is Rooks
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I have Okkervil River's "The Stage Names" and apart from "Unless it Kicks" I wasn't overly impressed. I have been meaning to check out this evocatively named offshoot for quite a while and finally got round to it following generally favourable reviews of this new one.
The opener is fairly decent but then I was a little dismayed by the title track. Its an "epic" song that seems very concious of the fact that its trying to be "epic". A bit like an actor thats trying too hard and forgetting that the audience don't want to know that he's acting. A similar track would be John Mile's "Music". Not exactly pretentious but overdone.
Luckily the album improves from thereon and the next six tracks are remarkably solid, varied and entertaining. Leviathan Bound becomes the new opener, Home Life rumbles on like a thunderstorm receding into the distance before the short and almost violent Lost Boys. Then comes the rocking Century Eyes, the gorgeous I Was A Cloud has a great hook in the vocals and then this group of songs finishes up with South Col which conveys a feeling of a high mountain, partly obscured by snow laden clouds, using keening guitar sounds and plenty of space.
I'm not too sure about Snow Leopard. At first listen it seemed like a bit of filler, but that's an early impression.
Meiburg's vocals are surprisingly atonal, and show a remarkable similarity to Scott Walker. However he saves the only genuine melody for the closing track "The Hunter's Star". Which is actually my favourite on the album.
The whole thing is much more of an English Folk album rather than the Americana you would expect. I'm rather taken with it.
Recommended
As a footnote I've gone back to "The Stage Names" and have found it a lot better than I remember.
The opener is fairly decent but then I was a little dismayed by the title track. Its an "epic" song that seems very concious of the fact that its trying to be "epic". A bit like an actor thats trying too hard and forgetting that the audience don't want to know that he's acting. A similar track would be John Mile's "Music". Not exactly pretentious but overdone.
Luckily the album improves from thereon and the next six tracks are remarkably solid, varied and entertaining. Leviathan Bound becomes the new opener, Home Life rumbles on like a thunderstorm receding into the distance before the short and almost violent Lost Boys. Then comes the rocking Century Eyes, the gorgeous I Was A Cloud has a great hook in the vocals and then this group of songs finishes up with South Col which conveys a feeling of a high mountain, partly obscured by snow laden clouds, using keening guitar sounds and plenty of space.
I'm not too sure about Snow Leopard. At first listen it seemed like a bit of filler, but that's an early impression.
Meiburg's vocals are surprisingly atonal, and show a remarkable similarity to Scott Walker. However he saves the only genuine melody for the closing track "The Hunter's Star". Which is actually my favourite on the album.
The whole thing is much more of an English Folk album rather than the Americana you would expect. I'm rather taken with it.
Recommended
As a footnote I've gone back to "The Stage Names" and have found it a lot better than I remember.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This is a very special record, of the type that doesn't seem to come along too often - self-contained, mysterious, beautiful, powerful. It feels religious but isn't; it's about birds, and love, and, quite possibly, impending environmental disaster. It's short - just 38 minutes - but perfectly weighted. Essentially folk, but experimental. Bits of it rock really quite hard, other bits are almost impossibly fragile. When the horn breaks over the top of the guitars, drums, double bass, and spaceship noise in The Snow Leopard... that might be my favourite musical moment of the year.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Surprisingly great
I listened to them in a movie for the first time, Midnight Kiss or something. They're just amazing.
Published on 3 Jan 2010 by J. J. B. Abellan
7 years on, Meiburg finds his voice
Rook is the album of 2008. The songs are all-of-a-piece, with the unity of sound reminding of 'Astral Weeks'. Read more
Published on 21 July 2009 by Simon Turner
Standout Album
Shearwater were new to me in 2008, and one of my most valued discoveries. They manage the brilliant trick of being both lush yet spare and bleak, evocative of moorlands, wild life... Read more
Published on 6 April 2009 by Adam K.
Quite Superb
This band just get better and better - and like their sister band, Okkervil River, haven't suffered from the obvious need of their lead personnel to focus on their own bands. Read more
Published on 11 Jan 2009 by Patrick Sykes
is there an Eden?
I was traveling through Indochine - doing nothing - nothing much at all when I chanced across a music store and found this CD on their racks. Read more
Published on 11 July 2008 by bohobozo
Another year....another brilliant Shearwater album
After my last review of a Shearwater album -the expansive double "Paulo Santo " - I enquired what is it with this band and birds. .....well doh! Read more
Published on 6 July 2008 by russell clarke
Shear delight...
This is amazingly the fifth album by Jonathan Meiburg's solo project Shearwater, a band so under the radar they had pretty much gone unnoticed here in the UK, apart from a small... Read more
Published on 3 July 2008 by WattsUp!
Flying Sounds
This album snuck up on me. On about the third listen it started to offer up it's hidden rewards. Shearwater have a knack of sounding epic and grand while still retaining an... Read more
Published on 22 Jun 2008 by Billy Budd
Outstandingly beautiful fifth album from Texan eco-pioneers
Shearwater began as a side project from Okkervil River members Jonathan Meiburg and Will Scheff back in 2001. Read more
Published on 24 May 2008 by C. O'Brien
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