2008 Woodie Awards
The Shins breathe new life in pop
Andrew Reeves
Issue date: 3/2/07 Section: Gallery
Pick a sunny, partly cloudy day with a light breeze and take a drive right around sunset with The Shins' Wincing the Night Away. Turn your stereo up loud, and as the first track explodes into a shotgun pulse of pop energy you'll look out over the horizon, and with a smirk on your face chuckle to yourself, "Oh, James Mercer, you've done it again!"
Leaking with pop sensibility, drenched in melodic wit from raw throbbing guitar riffs to lonely melancholic lead lines lightly coated in reverb, The Shins reintroduce us to that signature smart-pop sound.
Progressing just enough to avoid unwarranted comparison to Chutes Too Narrow, yet bringing back some of the old tricks we quickly fell in love with when we first met the pop-rock quartet at Oh, Inverted World, Wincing brings a sharpness to the table we haven't seen from the previous albums.
From the simple, yet classy "boom" mid way through the first track, The Shins seem to announce their re-entrance and miraculously carry that energy all the way through the album. The Shins drag the listener through tracks that can only be described as whimsical, with hooks that you just can't seem to get out of your head. The last track of the album (dare I say it?) may be the best James Mercer song I've heard to date.
Lyrically, we find Mercer moving forward right along side the music. The disenchanted, cynic of love we met in Chutes Too Narrow isn't present - in fact, in Wincing, we find a Mercer, at certain points, with his fist in the air, playing heavier on the dry sarcasm we really felt with Oh, Inverted World.
The excellence of this album is really found in its subtlety, in the corners of the album where there is that consistent, under the surface quality that gives you a warm fuzzy feeling in your stomach. Once I put Wincing in, I haven't been able to take it out (and yes, all you Brand New cultists, that means I took out The Devil and God… ).
The Shins have once again managed to shock the music world as they stand up and scream, "Pop is not dead!" and "We're not just the Garden State sound-track anymore!"
"Facing the android's conundrum / I felt like I should just cry / But nothing happened every time / I took one on the chin … "
Leaking with pop sensibility, drenched in melodic wit from raw throbbing guitar riffs to lonely melancholic lead lines lightly coated in reverb, The Shins reintroduce us to that signature smart-pop sound.
Progressing just enough to avoid unwarranted comparison to Chutes Too Narrow, yet bringing back some of the old tricks we quickly fell in love with when we first met the pop-rock quartet at Oh, Inverted World, Wincing brings a sharpness to the table we haven't seen from the previous albums.
From the simple, yet classy "boom" mid way through the first track, The Shins seem to announce their re-entrance and miraculously carry that energy all the way through the album. The Shins drag the listener through tracks that can only be described as whimsical, with hooks that you just can't seem to get out of your head. The last track of the album (dare I say it?) may be the best James Mercer song I've heard to date.
Lyrically, we find Mercer moving forward right along side the music. The disenchanted, cynic of love we met in Chutes Too Narrow isn't present - in fact, in Wincing, we find a Mercer, at certain points, with his fist in the air, playing heavier on the dry sarcasm we really felt with Oh, Inverted World.
The excellence of this album is really found in its subtlety, in the corners of the album where there is that consistent, under the surface quality that gives you a warm fuzzy feeling in your stomach. Once I put Wincing in, I haven't been able to take it out (and yes, all you Brand New cultists, that means I took out The Devil and God… ).
The Shins have once again managed to shock the music world as they stand up and scream, "Pop is not dead!" and "We're not just the Garden State sound-track anymore!"
"Facing the android's conundrum / I felt like I should just cry / But nothing happened every time / I took one on the chin … "
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