Shearwater

The latest release from Austin’s Shearwater might be the most fittingly titled album of the year. Animal Joy is an album about animals, as is much of the music written by band leader/ornithologist Jonathan Meiberg. It’s also an album delivered with an effervescent spirit, a far cry from the band’s origins 10 years ago as a sad bastards club where Meiberg and Okkervil River’s Will Sheff could unleash their saddest songs. Sheff left the project long ago, and, in his absence, Shearwater has grown into a project as brilliant, deep, dramatic and hopeful as life itself.