Shearwater: Rook

Shearwater's rise to greatness over the past few years has been woefully overshadowed by Jonathan Meiburg's other equally awesome band, Okkervil River. Rook signals their time to step out into their own spotlight. With this album, Shearwater establishes a sound that is different enough from Okkervil River's to warrant its independence, as Meiburg leaves his former colleagues behind to focus on his own work full-time. Rook is more delicately assembled, more intense, more emotionally wrought than Okkervil River's past two albums. Also present is a more direct sense of disappointment, as opposed to the seething resentment and self-deprecation of Black Sheep Boy and The Stage Names. Rook might just end up at the top of my year-end list a few months from now.