THE SHINS
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Albums reviewed:
2001 – Oh, Inverted World (9)
2003 - Chutes Too Narrow (8)

Could someone tell me why the hell this isn't the kind of music that is all over radio? Perfect pop music, engrossing melodies, funny yet relevant lyrics. Please! What sort of world do we live in? "Sorry, this music exceeds our station's quality standards, yes that's right, you can suck as much as you want, but you can't be too good" ? Is this what it's about? Or "Sorry, this music isn't whiny enough", or "sorry, this music doesn't promote pimpin' enough"? Agh! "Too much jangly guitars"? "Too much perfectly written vocal hooks"? I guess we all prefer boom box beats and big-fuzzing-distorted-yet-so-stereotypical electric guitar sounds.

Well me, I don't. And that's part of why I like The Shins' 'Oh, Inverted World' a lot. What does it sound like? Does it really copy an old style and glorify it? No! I can't really pinpoint one artist that's being blatantly ripped off here. The whole thing has a smell of the western part of the USA of course; folkish at times, quite happy sounding, big attention to melodies... The band is from Albuquerque and is now settled in Oregon. I don't think that's enough to compare them to the Beach Boys of course, as many do. Yet, one has to admit that the melodies by Mercer, the singer and songwriter here, are so meticulously crafted and beautifully sung and arranged that Brian Wilson can indeed pop up in your mind at certain moments. That can hardly be a bad thing, when you think of it.

My favourite song on here is Girl on the Wing; it has a great jerky beat, the way they melt their voices together at the end of the chorus "any other kind!" is awesome, and it even has a fun electric guitar solo. Perfect song. It even has the line "and let the gluttons fill themselves with all the worst of the gory nineties"! It's a great song about love relationships, but the music really makes me want to play "air bass guitar". Another contender is the "should have been on the radio everywhere" Know Your Onion!. It's another jangly number but listen to how the vocal melody goes up and down and everywhere! It seems to be a personal song about the songwriter's passed experiences at social life. It is also a bit of a story telling song, I love those! Caring Is Creepy is yet another bomb, again, everything is in what at first are very weird vocal melodies, but they end up making so much sense! Slower songs like the most famous track here New Slang can also be gorgeous. A couple of tracks are maybe less memorable and prevent this album from being perfect, but considering it's only a little over 30 minutes long and packs so much quality, it deserves its high rating.

The Shins aren't trying to be "indie" or anything. They're just making superb pop music. I simply don't understand why the hell I hadn't heard of them before recently! I wish that in 30 years from now, that would be what we would remember as being 2000s' pop music.

Simon Lac, September 24th 2005

 

I just noticed the lyrics from Mercer are very clever. More so than I previously thought. In fact, I have quite a lot of trouble understanding what exactly he's talking about now... It SEEMS like it's incredibly clever and all, it sounds like it too, but I find it hard to concentrate on them... And that's usually because the music takes it all, it's brilliant, and that's not a problem in itself. Lyrics often come second for me... Still it was a bit easier to figure out on 'Oh, Inverted World'. The production of their 2003 'Chutes Too Narrow' is much more "shiny" though! The first song puts this right in your face; only a bit of electric, and sparkling guitars riffed beautifully on a very fun beat. The album is also more mature in terms of arrangements...

It's very hard to separate The Shins' first two albums quality-wise. I do think that 'Chutes Too Narrow' comes out a bit flatter. Maybe from some of the novelty factor being gone, I have no idea. Some of its peaks like Kissing the Lipless and Saint Simon are actually better than peaks on 'Oh, Inverted World', they have superb voice harmonies and their pop twists are unheard of, Saint Simon particularly has a beautiful sung chorus and coda. However, the remaining songs do not stand out as much individually as on the previous album, often sounding quite good, but maybe not stylistically different enough from the album's peaks. But I'm not accusing them of having created a constant formulaic album either... There is diversity of sound, but not a diversity of "excitement" as there was on the 2001 release. You notice this by the end of the album, when songs start to be less interesting, and it's still only 30 minutes long (except for the noticeably different country style Gone For Good, "I found a fatal flaw in the logic of love!", what a great chorus... One of the easier songs to understand). The sung melodies are not as crazy too, I loved how those melodies seemed impossible to write in the way they were, yet sounded so powerful... As you may notice, I'm constantly comparing the album with the previous one, which is not a good thing to do. Maybe you should get Chutes Too Narrow first. In the end, this 2003 Shins release is high quality and worth your money.

I'm looking forward to hearing their 2006 release coming soon...

Simon Lac, January 25th 2006