Shearwater Brings A New Sound To A '90s Hit

Each week, NPR Music writer and editor Stephen Thompson brings us a new song. This week it's an new take on an old hit.

On Shearwater's new album "Fellow Travelers," the Austin-born and Brooklyn-based band covers the songs of bands with whom they've played on the road.

From that album, we hear Shearwater's cover of "Natural One" — originally by the group The Folk Implosion.

Thompson says he appreciates Shearwater's ability to reinterpret a song while staying true to the original.

"I'm a huge fan of the way Shearwater makes music that's both cavernous and delicate, and the singer, Jonathan Meiburg, has this huge, haunting voice. But when he dives into the songs on a new album of covers, he does a great job making the source material sound both like his band and like the artists he's covering," he tells Here & Now's Robin Young.