Palo Santo

Like Devendra Banhart or Iron and Wine, Shearwater are capable of emotional resonance through the most brittle of arrangements. Stunning.”
- Uncut (4 stars)

"Haunting, brooding and hopeful... takes you someplace with softer edges.”
- NPR

"These are wonderful, lilting songs that resist your every attempt at nailing them down.”
- Dusted

'Palo Santo' is the fourth album from Aus' Shearwater and undoubtedly their most startling collection of songs to date.

Singer/songwriter Jonathan Meiburg formed Shearwater back in 2001 along with Okkervil River frontman Will Sheff, as an outlet for quieter songs on which the two were working, but it wasn't long before the group mutated into something else…

'Palo Santo' is the first Shearwater album where Meiburg's is the only voice handling lead duties and his impassioned expressionism is as overwhelming as it is potent. Combining the intensity of Low and Will Oldham with the ragged pop beauty of Bright Eyes and Wilco, 'Palo Santo' exhibits a quite remarkable breadth of character across its eleven tracks.

Each of the songs here resonate with desperation, the most immediate example of this being the magnetic opening track 'La Dame et la Licorne', it's introspective energies offset by the rousing 'Red Sea, Black Sea' and later, 'Johnny Viola': the former owing much to the classic, slanted Americana pop of R.E.M., and the latter, The Replacements.

'Palo Santo' ebbs and flows like a gorgeous body of water unawares of outside influence. This is Shearwater, and they are like no other. 'Palo Santo' is both thrilling and unique and genuinely unconscious of its sentimentality. Very highly recommended.

"This is an album with enduring resonance which invites close, rapt attention.”
- The Age [Melbourne]