Shearwater has a tasty treat for us to listen to: a full-length preview of the band's latest album, Rook, which releases today, June 3rd, is available on the band's MySpace page. 

For the uninitiated, Shearwater started as a spin-off band for Okkervil River, to record songs that didn't fit in with Okkervil River's sound. It's no longer a side project, though -- in 2007, The New York Times listed Palo Santo as one of the best albums of the year.

Rook is short--a wee 35 minutes long. It's a good thing, too, otherwise you might find yourself lost in the meandering paths each song takes. When I first started listening to the album, I asked a friend to give it a shot. The way quiet mistral-like vocals mixed with soaring instrumentals prompted the question, "Is this a good album to dance the horizontal tango to?" We discussed, and the resounding agreement: nein! However, it's exactly the kind of sound you want to decompress to after a long day. You might even want to dance like a hippy chick for parts of it.

There's a lot of piano, gorgeous vocals, vibraphone, and cello. The album could make real life into a waking dream if you walked around the city with it on your iPod. While most of the album fits together quite nicely, "South Col" is the odd song out--it sounds like the band wrote a piece about a haunted playground. It's a RAD haunted playground, it just comes out of nowhere.

But enough of my descriptions. Have a listen, and check back later today on TIG for a full-length review of Rook.