Shearwater

Any artist willing to drone on somberly for long enough these days will eventually get credit for setting a “haunting” mood, but most will fail to match Shearwater’s slipped-between-worlds quality. Leader Jonathan Meiburg doesn’t make the Austin band’s methods obvious: Though his vocals mix a moaning baritone and wavering falsetto, they tend to keep even the band’s trippier songs on a firm melodic path. “Black Eyes” and “Corridors,” both from 2010’s The Golden Archipelago, even manage to rock in their own ways. That record completed the band’s “The Island Arc,” a trilogy of LPs with focused songwriting and mystical prog-rock ambitions. The band’s debut for Subpop, 2012’s Animal Joy, arrives baring the vibrant, exuberant “You As You Were” and the equally propulsive “Animal Life.”

Updated 03/05/2012