In addition to playing keyboards in Okkervil River and fronting Shearwater, Jonathan Meiburg is a graduate student in ornithology, a pursuit that seems to inform and almost define his music. For instance, a shearwater is a type of bird that flies close to the water's surface, and its namesake band plays songs that skim immense emotions and often push towards soaring climaxes. Fittingly, Shearwater's third album is entitled Winged Life, which refers to a William Blake verse but could easily title Meiburg's biography.
Former Kingfisher frontman Meiburg co-founded the band with Okkervil River's Will Sheff in 1999 and released the starkly atmospheric The Dissolving Room in 2001. For 2002's Everybody Makes Mistakes, they added bassist Kim Burke and percussionist Thor Harris. Winged Life boasts an even more lush, orchestrated sound that incorporates banjo, pedal steel, violin, and programmed percussion. Its music is not quite as quirky as Okkervil River, although its songs are similarly hymnlike. It's only a few shades lighter than the pitch-dark Americana of Pinetop Seven, although Meiburg and Sheff, like Darren Richards, approach lyrics with a storyteller's eye, allowing the music to bring out the tone of the words.
Taking to heart Joan Didion's assertion that "we tell ourselves stories in order to live," Meiburg and Sheff write story-songs that feel like life-or-death situations even though they usually only document life's incessant mundanities-- no big events, just gentle realizations. Sheff especially is more interested in missed opportunities and crippling inaction than in actual events: On the standout "A Makeover", he sings about a man who undergoes a conversion, only to revert to his old self disappointingly quickly: "And in three weeks his new leaf has rubbed away and it feels just like an average day."
On the somber "Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine", Meiburg ponders the loss of rambunctious youth among himself and his friends. But he never comes across as indulgent or whiny, just a bit awkward and sadly wistful as he realizes, "I'm the only one, at the top of my lungs, who's still singing sweet adelines." He addresses a similar lament in "The World in 1984". In two concise scenes, one with his WWII veteran grandfather and another with his mother, he realizes how much has changed in 20 years and how much has been lost, but as his mother tells him, "Kid, you're lucky to be alive." Meiburg and Sheff may share songwriting credits and singing duties, but moments like these, along with the avian themes, prove that Shearwater pursues Meiburg's vision like a homing pigeon.
Unfortunately, not all these story-songs carry the emotional impact Shearwater grasp for, sometimes proving too hollow-boned to bear the weight. On "My Good Deed", a man leaves his lover, thinking he knows what's best for her; it's a scenario that's either classic or clichéd, depending on your point of view, but for a recent example, the book and movie The Notebook hinges creakily on the same predicament. It's the music that saves the song: "My Good Deed" fades out with an open-air coda rich with thick organ and ascending bells.
When the lyrics begin to drag, Shearwater-- especially Harris and Burke-- redeem the album with a lush sound full of gentle surprises-- like the pop-song chorus of "(I've Got a) Right to Cry" and the ascending guitar lines on "St. Mary's Walk"-- that nicely compliment Meiburg's fluttery vocals. Such flourishes make Winged Life more than just an Okkervil River side project (as previous efforts arguably were); Shearwater's years of dedication and hard work have established them as a solid group in their own right.
