The Golden Archipelago (Deluxe Edition)

by

Shearwater

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Musically, Shearwater has taken a leap forward with this album. Mostly up-tempo tracks (very unusual for the group) with dense, rhythmic instrumentation, it's obvious that the theme behind the album has charged the band full of a potent and exciting energy. As someone who's only in it for the songs, without the benefit of the enormous informative booklet sold with the CD version, I feel like I might be missing an integral part of the experience, however, as the lyrics do not quite seem up to par.

Their previous albums contain lyrics that conjure haunting images or clear stories. The song "Rooks" is a master class in doomsday lyricism, and "Leviathan, Bound", while abstract, features the powerful statement "You are racing, alone" to anchor the song. The same is true with phenomenal tunes like "Seventy-Four, Seventy-Five" and the apocalyptic images of "Red Sea, Black Sea". The Golden Archipelago, on the other hand, seems to get lost in vague phrases that almost betray the power of the music and Jonathan Meiburg's incredible voice. For example, the fury of "Corridors" is similar to that of their previous track, "Century Eyes", but without the fascinating openly interpretable but evocative lyrics featured in the latter song.

While it's possible that Meiburg et. al. got a bit lost in this island-hopping concept, the album still stands as a fantastic sonic journey from one of the most interesting bands out there right now (with, I might add, one of my personal favorite vocalists of all time -- From his manic howls to his mournful falsetto, Meiburg is vocally in top form here). I greatly look forward to a future combination of their new found orchestration and their older, more open lyrical masterpieces.

I'd not heard of this band before this release was reviewed in the Chicago Tribune. The reviewer could barely say enough about it. He used words like "original" and "rich." I checked out the band right hear at Amazon and was surprised to see the number of releases they had under their belt and how well their fans liked them. I thought, maybe, being an Indie band, they just never entered my radar. So.....I dropped the bucks and took my chance. I lost.

The first time I listened to it I really didn't care for it. But then I thought maybe it has to grow on you. I tried it a second time and thought "No. This just isn't that good." I tried a third time and never made it all the way through. It bordered on painful.

The songs are weak at best. The melodies are so vapid as to nearly fall apart under their own weightlessness. I think the lead singer has a terrible voice. My guess is he writes the tunes as well because no one in their right mind would hire him as a lead singer. There were some nice instrumental passages but that was about it.

A good song delivers a sense of ownership. You feel the investment, the emotion the singer or band has in the piece. I heard no sense of ownership here. It were as though someone else wrote the material and handed it to them with just enough time to get it recorded.

If you're a fan of these guys you'll probably like this as it already has good user reviews here. If you're not familiar with them, you might want to give this a pass. It's pretty terrible.