New releases at this time of year are a bit thin on the frozen ground so here’s a mention for the best album of 2008 which had an unaccountably patchy showing in the end of year lists. Grand, epic, soaring and swooping like the birds which adorn every Shearwater release. An album full of riches leaves the most melancholic to the end, with the rolling piano on final track “the hunter’s star” and the extraordinary vocals from Jonathon Meiburg all evoking a unique world - bleak and spartan yet somehow immensely warming.
