Shearwater’s sometime naturalist frontman, Jonathan Meiburg, describes the band’s ninth and finest album as a “protest record”, and it finds him surveying a world embattled by consumerism and environmental menace. As the lyrics hurtle between bloody beaches and ozone-cracked skies, the music strives for a brooding but soaring power to match the message. Motorik Neu! beats and Talk Talk-type atmospherics manage to be epic without sounding bombastic. Another trump card is played with the presence of Lost in Translation/Hannibal soundtrack composer Brian Reitzell, whose thundering dulcimers bring a cinematic drama. Filaments’ thunderous mix of urgent funk and found sound is reminiscent of Byrne and Eno’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Radio Silence is the sort of skyscraping anthem U2 once created. The piano-led Wildlife in America finds Meiburg combining evocative personal nostalgia with a wider sense of panic and disaster: “Back in our school days, you were wild-eyed, before the damage was done.” Terrific stuff.
