Shearwater: "Castaways"

From the raw, acoustic strums of The Dissolving Room to the lush, symphonic love affair with a piano that was Rook to this percussion-driven sample from The Golden Archipelago: Meiburg’s voice surpasses all orchestration with a strength that grabs me infallibly by the ladyparts. Even at a whisper, it has a muscle and projection most vocalists achieve only at their apex, and hold in reserve for those spare songs that rise above the rest of the album as an epic centerpiece. For Shearwater, however, every song is raised to that level. Meiburg’s voice just begins and blammo: shit’s a ballad.

“Castaways” is another deeply enjoyable Shearwater ballad, full of blustery tides and blistering sincerity. What distinguishes it from a handful of their former ballads is its unwavering tone: there’s not so much as a delicate breath or whiff of timidity to be found. Instead, Meiburg’s vocals sweep in, over and through the tides of hurly-burly percussion, in one resolute bearing. Rising over the tumbling drive of rhythm, which his voice urges on and on and turns to torrent. The occasional muted strum or subtle climb of piano keys unburying itself from the swells of tumult.

The banjo, guitar, and strings have been left behind, and with them almost all traces of folk. This sample marks a clear continuance of the band’s gradual or occasional sloughing off of more tell-tale folk indicators and further deviation from singer/songwriter paucity into something increasingly cinematic, focused and indelible. While occupying a comparatively limited range of his voice we’re familiar with, we’re unfamiliar with such a determined drive and breathtaking singlemindedness. The song doesn’t serve to showcase the band’s full range but does showcase their cumulative and growing ability to produce solid works even without throwing every card they have on the table.

I could gripe about the obfuscated clarity around the lyrics, about having to actually focus to grab the words through the vocal surges, but the effort is rewarded so I won’t. “Castaways” retains all the fury and lush emotional tumult of any ballad from Rook, without the wintery chill nipping at its edges. Instead: lit from beneath by determined heat. The roots and winter have dissolved around them, but in their absence Shearwater stands with all the remarkable presence and poise we expect—and maybe a concreteness we are happy to discover.