Shearwater

Jet Plane and Oxbow, Shearwater’s second original full-length for Sub Pop, is their career-defining album—the leap forward those of us who’ve been watching them for years have always believed they would make. Lush, powerful, and grand, with a confident edge heard more often in their live shows than on record, it feels like the musical statement they’ve been working toward through five albums and a decade on the road. It’s an album that captures the light and darkness of our time through the lens of one of our most unique and, for a growing number of ardent fans, treasured bands.

This is definitely Shearwater’s loudest record; it’s easy to imagine these songs roaring from the stage.  But it’s also, strangely, their most intricate and beautiful one. Front man Jonathan Meiburg and producer/engineer Danny Reisch (who also recorded 2012’s Animal Joy and the off-the-cuff collaborations of 2014’s Fellow Travelers) spent two years crafting Jet Plane and Oxbow in studios in Austin and Los Angeles, with help from drummer Cully Symington, longtime Shearwater associates Howard Draper and Lucas Oswald, and tourmates Abram Shook, Jesca Hoop and Jenn Wasner.