CD Review: Shearwater "Rook"

Written by: Damian L-K


The world needs more quiet music - more genuinely quiet music that is. After all there's no shortage of singer/songwriters out there aping melancholy. But genuinely good quiet music is hard to come by. Somehow you want the world to quiet down for it. When you here real beautiful quiet music, it fulfills something deep inside. After all, music has to be truly good if it's going to be quiet because it's so much harder to get people to actually listen to it.

And here, with Shearwater's new record Rook, we finally hear some great quiet music. Instead of a one-sheet press release, Shearwater sends a short story about a singer living somewhere in an older world who wants to "Sing like every bird, from the delicate warbling of the chaffinch to the clattering of the stork, from a raven's deep croak to the winnowing of the snipe's wings. All sounding at once, each contained within the other, like a set of Russian nested dolls." I suppose this singer's music is what we where supposed to hear on this album. I'm not sure what all those birds would sound like but I hope it would sound like this.

And so the world is granted us some truly quiet music. Now it's your turn to listen. See if you can hear what we did.

Rating 9.0 out of 10

Listen to (download):
"Rooks"


Tour Dates:
July 18 San Jose CA HP Pavillion with COLDPLAY
July 19 Las Vegas NV MGM Grand Arena with COLDPLAY
July 23 Portland OR Doug Fir
July 24 Seattle WA Nectar Lounge