Pitchfork Forkcast: New Music: Shearwater: "Rooks" [MP3/Stream]

New Music: Shearwater: "Rooks" [MP3/Stream]

"Rook" is a loaded word. It's a chess piece that moves horizontally across the board, for the protection of royalty, or it's a card shark or dice cheat deadset on swindling you. It's also a species of farmland crow common in Britain. All three meanings play into Shearwater's new song called "Rooks" and presumably their upcoming album called Rook. The song opens with piles of dead birds burning by the side of the road, which Shearwater accentuates with a spiny guitar and a high-hat that dices the beat. This disturbance of birds portends emergency and apocalypse: "The ambulance said there's nowhere to flee for your lives, so we stayed inside/ And we'll sleep until the world of man is paralyzed," sings Jonathan Meiburg, his voice growing sharp and accusatory, drawing out that long syllable -lyzed like a blade. He won't be taken; he moves only for himself. Across the song's bridge a trumpet plays what could be a funeral march, sped up and decorated with Meiburg's background whoops. Forgoing the edge-of-the-precipice dramatics that lent Palo Santo its almost unbearable urgency, he understates his performance, which, ironically, reveals what a strong vocalist he's become. Instead of a big finish, "Rooks" ends ominously, with a simple, sudden doomsday chord that fades quickly into silence.

MP3:> Shearwater: "Rooks"
[from Rook; due 06/03/08 on Matador]