‘The Great Awakening’ is Shearwater’s seventh studio album, and first for over 5 years. Produced by the band and Dan Duszynski (Loma), the album shows us where the band’s wandering frontman has been.

While the thundering songs of the band’s 2016 LP, ‘Jet Plane and Oxbow’ (Sub Pop), were filled with fears for what the United States was becoming under the previous presidential administration, primary member Jonathan Meiburg resolved to find a new approach for ‘The Great Awakening’. “I felt hopeless,” he admits. “And I didn’t want to make hopeless music.”

‘The Great Awakening’ is a soulful and immersive travelogue of grand atmospheres and intimate landscapes, decorated with field recordings from Meiburg’s journey while writing his critically acclaimed debut book, ‘A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World’s Smartest Birds of Prey’, released in March 2021 by Knopf.

The resultant 11-track album – anchored by Meiburg’s closely-recorded voice, more otherworldly and urgent than ever – is one that Shearwater have been striving toward for years: a journey into the unknown, embracing sorrow and joy, beauty and terror.