Shearwater: Animal Joy
Review by Ellen Eldridge
Animal Joy truly encompasses the vibrancy of background music set to drown out the noise behind you. The songs work to energize and soothe concurrently. The third track, “Dread Sovereign” and the seventh track, “Open Your Houses (Basilisk),” attracted my immediate attention. “Dread Sovereign’s”opening verse, “Maybe I’m not ready, maybe I was not properly socialized, but when you drag me under, when you pull me over the line, that’s when you really reach me,” played repeatedly in my mind after the first time hearing it, which made me long for deeper understanding.
This is one of those albums that can’t be contained in one listen, and even after close to ten full revolutions of the disc all I can say for sure is that I am thankful for the lush melodies and reassuring voice. The difficulty in making out individual lyrics makes pinpointing the love I feel for this emotional music tricky; it can’t be the lyrics nor the themes when a listener only makes out certain words, but the way the words are presented conveys such a sense of fuzzy bliss that I turn to the lyric booklet.
Animal Joy is a new favorite for me. I’ve never hear of singer Jonathan Meiburg nor his work with Matador previously, but Shearwater’s Animal Joy represents songs that tackle the big questions; this is something to put your finger on if you won’t grasp tightly with an adamant refusal not to let this pass you by. Thanks to the label, Sub Pop, you can listen to the entire album now. Do so below, and when you agree that these songs pull at you buy a copy and dive deeply into the sea of Shearwater.
Playing in Atlanta at The Earl on Wednesday Feb. 29 and again at Variety Playhouse on May 19. Do yourself a favor and make it to one if not both of these shows.
