A bold, gorgeous, half-baked experiment

What a way to come back after six years. The only piece of new music Shearwater released in that period were Quarantine Music I-VIII, ambient projects released only on Bandcamp. While The Great Awakening, the band’s 10^th album, thankfully does not possess any 40-minute long tracks, it also goes for a moody, fragile musical landscape akin to a field recording. It’s not unheard-of territory for the band and a good fit for their stark lyrics and dramatic vocals of Johnathan Meiburg, but the resulting record is uneven as a couple gorgeous moments are let down by a barren second half and an unjustifiable hour-long run time.

Shearwater’s last record, Jet Plane and Oxbow, featured their poppiest indie pop and rock sounds to date, with material that would not sound out of step with the likes of Two Door Cinema Club. Great Awakening, on the other hand, is closer to older albums like Rook and Thieves and songs like “I Was A Cloud,” where the stillness of the music is used to invoke introspection within the listener. But even those albums had an occasional acoustic sing-a-long like “Near a Garden” or let the guitars cut loose like on “The Snow Leopard.”

The closest song on The Great Awakening that is similar to ones on the Jet Plane and Oxbow album is “Empty Orchestra,” with its grinding bass, livelier vocals and echoing guitars. Otherwise, Shearwater embraces a slow burn of flickering sounds, whether that be windchimes and piano of “No Reason” or the guttural bass and uncompressed drums of “Laguna Seca.” Songs unfurl into rich palettes of violins, synths and field recordings without ever feeling overwrought or overbearing. It’s a thing of beauty to bear witness to the huge, Wye Oak-esque guitars on “Highgate” or the violins and sounds of nature on “Xenarthran.” There’s not much in the way of tunes or hooks, but who cares when the music is this atmospheric and engrossing.

The Great Awakening is full of layers weaving their way in and way out of the mix, which might feel disparate if it were not grounded by Meiburg’s delivery and writing. His commanding baritone demands attention, other than the poor vocoder echoes lathered on “Empty Orchestra,” which is necessary for writing filled with questions and commands. A lesser singer would make lines like “And what have you done / What have you learned / From all these stubborn people” or “Where does your mind go? / How do you fall in step / With all this speaking?” seem presumptuous, yet they feel like the most important questions in the universe with his delivery and the fragile music forcing one to contemplate them more. The language is plain, yet the overwhelming restlessness and desire to hold on to meaning in the face of tragedy is palpable.

The 59-minute run-time alone is not the issue. After all, the album is only seven minutes longer than its predecessor, and there isn’t anything as lengthy as the nearly 10-minute closer to Rook, “The Rainbow.” However, these longer songs are not bolstered by the momentum of 4-on-the-floor drum beats or melodic guitar work like on Jet Plane and Oxbow, nor do they have the advantage of being spread out throughout the tracklist. It is akin to Rook ending with the seven-minute-long “Home Life” followed by “The Rainbow.”

While the entire album is fairly mellow, the final stretch goes for the most barren, skeletal effect, which again would be more effective if mixed in with something to jumpstart the album’s flatlining heartbeat. The atmospheric whooshing and scrappy guitars of “There Goes the Sun” seemed poised for some sort of crescendo that never happens. The closest is maybe the violins in the final minute of “Aqaba” or the shuffling drum fills of “Wind of Love,” but those pale in comparison to previous usage.

The Great Awakening is built on a great foundation, and the first half ranks among the band’s best. It stays pretty all the way down, but while the sound quality never falters, the compositions and sequencing does.