Following Shearwater’s sprawling and triumphant release of “Jetplane and Oxbow” in 2016, I had incredibly high expectations for their new 2022 album, “The Great Awakening.” I anticipated the band’s signature complexity of melody and lyrics, with huge peaks and valleys of emotion.
So on my first listen to “The Great Awakening,” I was surprised. This album is slower, more deliberately paced, and approaches its mood shifts with subtlety. Perhaps it’s a reflection of Shearwater’s time in COVID isolation, or perhaps we’re seeing some influence from frontman Jonathan Meiburg’s other project, Loma, which tends to be more ethereal.
At the time, I remember remarking, “It’s like Shearwater made an album with Radiohead.”
But while this was not at all what I’d envisioned, the album is full of hidden gems waiting to be unearthed.
The first track on the album, “Highgate,” still leads as my personal favorite. Opening with clean, unadorned vocals, Meiburg sets the tone with the lyric, “Here comes your heart attack.”
A few lines later, the minimalist piano is swept away in an oncoming storm that thrills up your spine with heavy, reverberating bass. Accented with thoughtful strings, there’s still somehow a feeling of moving upward until the song concludes with a moment of pure vulnerability — Meiburg’s lilt on the words “Archangel Gabriel” never fails to lift goosebumps on my skin.
The following tracks build an introspective and intimate atmosphere. I’ll admit, it took me a while to discern nuance in the progression — unlike “Jetplane and Oxbow,” which knocked me over on the first listen, this is an album that captures you over repeated visits.
Track four, “Laguna Seca,” sends us on a journey of dark implications with steady, almost tribal percussion and lyrics that croon about our ugliness — as a nation? A society? A species? The final effect is darkly satisfying.
Track six, “Empty Orchestra,” is perhaps the most recognizably Shearwater tune, very much in the vein of songs on JP&O and 2012’s “Animal Joy.” Meiburg’s vocals reach up for the heavens with a bright undercurrent, creating an experience that’s both bittersweet and urgent.
This plucking of heartstrings, so characteristic of Shearwater’s work, continues in the haunting melody of track nine, “Aqaba.” This song rolls out gradually and inexorably, half-beautiful and half-eerie, like something from a well-crafted soundtrack.
Overall, "The Great Awakening" is less for stadiums and more for long car rides in the rain. Hearkening back to some of Shearwater’s early work, which tended to have an experimental edge, this new release may be a surprise to fans who are accustomed to their recent style. But I’d argue that it’s a worthy addition to the Shearwater discography, and as always, a product of its time.
For anyone that can’t quite find a foothold in this album upon its summer release, I’d simply suggest this: return to it with fresh ears when autumn strikes. It will make perfect sense then.