Fellow Travelers

Originally intended as a low key EP release before the band's follow up to 2012's 'Animal Joy', this latest project from Shearwater, now fully formed into a ten track long player, is a well thought out effort from the Texans. Calling 'Fellow Travelers' a covers album does it a slight disservice, as it is very much a retrospective of musicians Shearwater have toured with over the course of their 14 year career. The twist being those same collaborators sidestep their own work in favor of someone else's material, producing a surprisingly entertaining package.

Unsurprisingly, the album ebbs and flows somewhat unevenly, covering an eclectic range of styles, moods and tempo, held together by the gruff vocals of Jonathan Meiburg, whose voice can conjure up the sublime highs of Xiu Xiu's 'I Luv the Valley OH!' through to the melancholy depths of Wye Oak's 'Mary Mary' in a relatively brief 33 minutes. Choosing to retain much of the venom and bite of the aforementioned Xiu Xiu original is a wise move, as is the reworking of the most obvious offering, Coldplay's 'Hurts Like Heaven'. Here, the song is given a clarity not found in the original, free of its synth-heavy backing and played straight down the line, it version has a wonderful lightness as a piano led track with layers of ambient noise that build steadily towards the finale.