Rook is the fifth studio album by American indie rock

Indie rock

Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...

 band Shearwater

Shearwater (band)

Shearwater is an American indie rock band formed in Austin, Texas in 1999 by Okkervil River members Jonathan Meiburg and Will Sheff, although Sheff is no longer with Shearwater.-History:...

. It was released on June 3, 2008, on the Matador Records

Matador Records

Matador Records is an independent record label, with a roster of indie rock artists and bands.-History:Matador was started by Chris Lombardi in 1989 in his New York City apartment. The following year, Lombardi was joined by former Homestead Records manager Gerard Cosloy, and the two of them have...

 label. The track "Rooks" was the first single from the album. The album was previewed on May 5, 2008 and May 29, 2008, at two special concerts in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

 and Austin, Texas

Austin, Texas

Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...

. The band toured in support of the album later in 2008. The album gained the band a spot on Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

's "Must List" on May 28.

Shearwater released the album on both CD and vinyl

Gramophone record

A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...

, with the vinyl version having a bonus track called "North Col".

Co-founder Jonathan Meiburg

Jonathan Meiburg

Jonathan Meiburg, born in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 1st, 1976, is a multi-instrumentalist musician and the lead singer and songwriter for Shearwater , a band he co-founded with Will Sheff in Austin, Texas. He also shared duties with Sheff as a member of Okkervil River...

 said he chose the title for the sound of the word and the fact that it has multiple meanings. The theme of birds recurs frequently with the band, from their name to titles of songs and albums (for example, "Sing, Little Birdie" and Winged Life

Winged Life

Winged Life is Shearwater's third full-length album, released on March 16, 2004, on Misra Records.-Track listing:#"A Hush" – 4:17#"My Good Deed" – 5:52#"Whipping Boy" – 4:42...

). Meiburg is an ornithologist

Ornithology

Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds...

.

Music

The album features harp

Harp

The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...

, glockenspiel

Glockenspiel

A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...

, woodwind and a hammer dulcimer among more conventional instruments such as guitar and piano. The track "Rooks" features an overdub of piano being played backwards. The album was produced by Meiburg .

Critics

The response from critics has been very positive. At Metacritic

Metacritic

Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

, which assigns a normalized

Normalization (statistics)

In one usage in statistics, normalization is the process of isolating statistical error in repeated measured data. A normalization is sometimes based on a property...

 rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average

Weighted mean

The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...

 score of 85 - indicating "Universal Acclaim" - based on 20 reviews. Pitchfork Media

Pitchfork Media

Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...

 called it "impressive and uniformly gorgeous" and gave it an 8 out of 10 rating.

Track listing

1. "On the Death of the Waters" – 3:08
2. "Rooks" – 3:21
3. "Leviathan, Bound" – 2:52
4. "Home Life" – 7:15
5. "Lost Boys" – 2:24
6. "Century Eyes" – 2:18
7. "I Was a Cloud" – 5:12
8. "South Col" – 2:35
9. "The Snow Leopard" – 5:08
10. "The Hunter's Star" – 4:00

Singles

• "Rooks" (May 27, 2008), 7" vinyl

1. "Rooks" – 3:21
2. "The Rainbow" (Talk Talk
   Talk Talk
   Talk Talk were an English musical group, active from 1981 to 1991. The group had a string of international hit singles including "Today", "Talk Talk", "It's My Life", "Such a Shame", "Dum Dum Girl", "Life's What You Make It" and "Living in Another World"....
   
    cover; recorded live at the Crocodile Cafe, Seattle) – 9:47

• The Snow Leopard EP (October 14, 2008), digital download

1. "The Snow Leopard" – 5:02
2. "So Bad" (Baby Dee
   Baby Dee
   Baby Dee is an American performance artist, multi-instrumentalist, and singer-songwriter from Cleveland, Ohio.-Early career:In the 1970s, Baby Dee began her musical career as a street performer, but soon decided to take work as an organist at a Catholic church in the Bronx...
   
    cover) – 4:55
3. "North Col" – 2:17
4. "Henry Lee" (Nick Cave
   Nick Cave
   Nicholas Edward "Nick" Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, and occasional film actor.He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1984, a group known for its eclectic influences and...
   
   cover; recorded live from KUT) – 5:00
5. "Rooks" (live from Radio K) – 3:14
6. "I Was a Cloud" (live from Radio K) – 4:48
7. "South Col" / "The Snow Leopard" (live at Florence Gould Hall, NYC) – 5:56

External links

• Shearwater's official site
• Matador Records press release (includes a promo mp3 of single "Rooks")
• Live performance of "Rooks" at SXSW