The Shins: Wincing the Night Away

The Shins
Wincing The Night Away
Sub Pop

Not so long ago, The Shins were one of those delightfully obscure jangle-pop bands that hail from an appropriately random city (Albuquerque) and make records about listening to records. Three chords, three minutes, no complaints.

Then that doe-eyed Natalie Portman came along with her little headphones and made things complicated. “This song will change your life,” she tells Zach Braff in 2004’s Garden State— an endorsement that simultaneously put The Shins on a pedestal and a chopping block. Sales of the band’s first two albums skyrocketed, but as a consequence, frontman James Mercer became the unwitting Hillary Clinton of the indie scene—a confusingly polarizing heir apparent who shouldn’t rationally excite or offend anybody—but does.

Considering the scrutiny then, Mercer’s first post-Portman Shins album, Wincing the Night Away, is all the more impressive. Masterfully avoiding the two main pitfalls of the “follow-up,” the band neither repeats itself nor dives into an experimental abyss. Instead, the songs represent a very satisfying evolution that ought to appease their loyalists, surprise the newbies, and silence the haters.

The Shins’ chiming '60s hooks are still in stock (see “Australia,” “Turn On Me”) but the guitars get respites amid occassional strings and some lovely underwater keyboards-- most notably on opening track “Sleeping Lessons” and the Eno-esque “Red Rabbits.” Unlike its two predecessors, Wincing also makes some welcome forays into darker textures and unconventional rhythm patterns, adding an interesting new dynamic behind Mercer’s Brian Wilsonish vocals and Scrabble vocabulary.

No, these songs probably won’t change your life, but you’re still encouraged to listen.

(Andrew Clayman)


Published in The Metro Pulse, January 2007