Album Review: Shearwater - Jet Plane And Oxbow

This album feels like a band trying on clothes from their older sibling's cupboard.

It's a record that combines Shearwater's usual baroque tendencies with turn-of-the-century club-rock sounds. Haunted synth lines hover over the chatter of icy dulcimer hammers, and compressed krautrock percussion keep the pace lively. Frontman Jonathan Meiburg's pithy writing carries all the usual elemental daydreams of wild places and he still has the style and grace to carry each tune to a higher plane. Jet Plane And Oxbow sounds like a band with fresh reserves of energy. It's not Shearwater as you may know them, but as always it's a fascinating listen.