Three years in the making

The problem with making an awesome album (say, Chutes Too Narrow by the Shins) and subsequently getting somewhat famous (say, by getting name-checked in a popular indie film, which, for example's sake, we'll call Garden State) is that anticipation starts building for your next album (hypothetically, for our purposes here, called Wincing the Night Away). And if you happen to take more than three years between releases (three years, three months, and two days, to be exact, in a speculative sort of way), well, you run the risk of having the hype swallow up your next album before it even has a chance to spread its wings.

Unsurprisingly, this is exactly what happened with Wincing the Night Away (which is, in fact, the name of the Shins' third full-length). People expected - well, I don't know what they were expecting. "New Slang" eleven times, maybe? At any rate, Wincing is experimental, complex, musically rewarding, and in just about every way the equal of the albums that preceded it.

Those who had gotten too used to the fairly straightforward guitar pop on Chutes (not that there's anything wrong with that; I'd probably put Chutes in my top ten favorite albums right now, although that's a particularly nebulous list) may have forgotten that Oh, Inverted World contained plenty of sonic experimentation - just think about "Your Algebra" and you really don't even need to call up a second track. As such, you'd think that Wincing wouldn't come as such a surprise, but it does, at least at first. The opening track, "Sleeping Lessons," initially contains no guitar at all and features some amount of distortion on James Mercer's voice, but it eventually breaks into a rollicking final section that establishes the album as something you have to keep your ears open for.

"Australia" and "Phantom Limb" are much more straightforward tracks that wouldn't have been out of place on Chutes ("Pam Berry" is quite a bit different but it's less than a minute long and so barely counts), but everything shifts a bit with "Sea Legs," which almost sounds like "Moby f/ James Mercer" or something, rather than a Shins song. With Wincing the Night Away, however, Mercer proves that it's no longer immediately obvious what a Shins song should be. "Red Rabbits" has a quirky sound, but it's not one that is quintessentially "Shins" (if indeed a band can have a quintessential sound after three fairly distinct albums) - nevertheless, it's one of the best songs Mercer has written to date. This is followed by the insanely catchy opening riff to "Turn On Me," another immediate Shins classic deservedly broadcast to the world on a recent episode of "Late Night with David Letterman."

The album loses a small amount of steam towards the end, which is probably the worst thing that can be said about it. "Black Wave" sounds like "Your Algebra" all grown up, but much like the earlier song, it has a whiff of filler about it - compared to most of the album there are surprisingly few words (they don't start until 1:08 of a 3:19 song, the shortest full track on the album). "Spilt Needles" is another song whose sound will probably surprise casual Shins fans, though it's another (like "Sea Legs") that proves surprisingly good on repeated listens, once the shock has had a chance to wear off. "Girl Sailor" and "A Comet Appears" are both more standard-sounding tracks, closing the album with a sense of familiarity.

The sound of the Shins may be shifting once again, but they've never sounded richer than they do here, nor has Mercer sounded more confident. He may not be a tremendously accomplished vocalist, but his voice is distinctive and well-suited to his labyrinthine, often impenetrable lyrics. As usual with the Shins, however, puzzling out the lyrics is only half the battle, and Mercer has crafted track after track of gorgeous melodies to please even the most spoiled ear. "Phantom Limb," well-chosen as the first single, and "Red Rabbits" stand out, but every track has at least a few moments of transcendence to its name ("Pam Berry" is a possible exception, but this is understandable as it's mostly just an interstitial).

I complain slightly on every Shins album that Mercer didn't see fit to give us more than ten tracks (as already covered, Wincing has 11, but one is less than a minute long), but it's hard to be too upset when the music flows so well and has been so well-crafted. If three years and ten tracks are what Mercer needs to deliver albums of this quality, it's hard to argue with his recipe for success. Wincing the Night Away may not immediately surpass its predecessors, but it stands with them while representing a confident step forward at the same time. To draw a Beatles comparison as I am apt to do, if Oh, Inverted World was the Shins' Please Please Me and Chutes Too Narrow their Hard Day's Night, then Wincing the Night Away jumps over Beatles for Sale right to Help! Whether the Shins, like the Beatles were, are capable of even bigger and better things remains to be seen. James Mercer probably isn't going to be changing the very face of rock music at this point, but then, no one in 1965 was likely to have seen The White Album coming, either.

Grade: A