"Palo Santo is one of the year's best indie-rock albums...These 11 flickering - and hummable - songs tell a desperate but not quite decipherable story...this album reveals its secrets slowly, or not at all." - Kelefa Sanneh
See also "From the Heavens to the Deep Sea, the Songs of a Birdwatcher" (Live Review)
"This is a chilling release, epic in both reach and accomplishment...one of the finest records to be released in recent memory." (9/10) - Jill LaBrack
"Shearwater evokes washed-out swimming holes full of corroded batteries and bad dreams. The group's haunting Palo Santo lopes around guitar, piano, banjo, and the voice of a singer who sounds unduly poised even when he's on the brink of losing it. Portentous atmospheres and patient pacing recall the ornate movements of late-period Talk Talk, but flashes of fuzz and brusque indie-rock urgency make the rarified moods bristlingly real. It's the kind of album that can steal a breath and pay it back, with interest, after the debt is long forgotten...Grade: A" - Andy Battaglia
"Meiburg was just as apt to cast a hush across the audience with his measured delivery as he was to shatter it with a sudden proclamation at high volume-- his band showing restraint, then rocking out correspondingly. The crowd appeared to relish every moment of the all-too-short set: while tuning Meiburg asked if there were any questions, prompting one in attendance to shout, "Are you playing anywhere tomorrow within driving distance?!!"- Matthew Solarski
Pitchfork also listed Palo Santo as one of 12 "most overlooked records of 2006"
"Red Sea, Black Sea" opens with the sound of Meiburg's strikingly clear vocals over a hazy foundation of tensely plucked banjo and skittishly foreboding beats...the song builds to an apocalyptic dance of ferocious instruments and voices, creating a sensation akin to being caught in a magnificent storm." - Kathryn Yu
"I asked Stephen [Thompson] to point out one band that really stood out. He mentioned several, but the one that struck me was Shearwater ..."Palo Santo" is haunting, brooding and hopeful." - Uri Berliner
"You don't ask why they sound good; as with a new infatuation, you just bathe in the emotional glow. So if I explained to you how opening track "la Dame et la Licome" with its minimalist piano, impossible Meiburg falsetto and gradually unfolding arrangement (drums, guitarist, violins) sucks the air from my lungs like a Spirit of Eden-era Talk Talk track, would you accuse me of breaking our spell? Would you push me from your bed if I paused to point out the similarities between jazz/classical flavored folk opus "Failed Queen" and one of Tim Buckley's sensual 60's epics? Would you recoil in horror if I staggered in late some evening drunk and giddy and going on about how pounding athem "Seventy Four, Seventy Five" has that same race-with-the-moon quality as John Cale circa 1974-75? Forgive me, my dear. People in love sometimes do strange things." - Fred Mills