The Shins: A Wilsonian Transformation
By Jay Antenen
Staff Writer

Pinning down where The Shins are going with their sound is like trying to understand the cover art on their new album Chutes Too Narrow. Opening up each new fold of the album cover reveals more details of a dreamscape golf course on a coast gone completely wrong. Ice cubes float in the pond while a bright pink alien blob with four hands and a foot shouts out “The Shins.” An alien with an eye on its tentacle looks at a sign with the album name. In the background, three radio towers pulsate yellow waves. Underneath all of this is lined paper with scribbles of song lyrics. Fold the album cover out and you get the complete disjointed picture it still won’t make sense.

Marty Crandall (keys), Dave Hernandez (bass), James Mercer (guitar) and Jesse Sandoval (drums) excited the indie rock world with the release of their debut album Oh Inverted World back in 2001. Similar to the sound of Apples in Stereo and The Aislers Set but with a folksier sound and less power pop, the album took the band from Albuquerque, New Mexico to the east coast on a widely acclaimed national tour.

As PopMatters.com put it,’“Oh Inverted World is filled with musical allusions that will probably go over the heads of many backpack-and-thick-rimmed-glasses wearing listeners: lots of Brian Wilson-like vocal lines, McGuinn-esque jangley guitar, some Barrett-oid psych here and there.” After a yearlong break and a move to Portland, Oregon, the band is back with a new album and is soon to be on an international tour.

You know The Shins are ready to move beyond their old ethereal 60s sound a minute into the first song “Kissing the Lipless.” To the strums of a quiet acoustic guitar Mercer sings,“Called to see if your back was still aligned / and your sheets were growing grass / . . . The great remains of a friendship scarred.” To a hard electric guitar riff, Mercer explodes, “You told us of your new life / there you got someone comin’ around gluing tinsel to your crown.”

The Shins keep their “great remains of a friendship” with a 1965 Brian Wilson-like sound around but with a new dynamic complexity. Violin and country steel guitar fill in on “Saint Simon” and “Gone for Good” respectfully. “Mine’s Not a High Horse” could be a Belle and Sebastian song. No, let me clarify, “Mine’s Not a High Horse” is a Belle and Sebastian song.

“Fighting in a Sack” will get you up and dancing to its fast beat and catchy melody. “Turn a Square” begins with a classic blues scale progression that ends in the fiery crescendo: “My head’s like a kite / all my thoughts run astray / and I’m a walking cliché.”

The one problem with The Shins’ flirtation with a Brian Wilson-like breakthrough is that they cannot seem to make up their minds on which side of 1966 they stand. After “Fighting in a Sack,” the band returns to a simpler folksy sound for “Pink Bullets” only to leap forward in “Turn a Square.” It remains to be seen if The Shins will make the complete transition in their next album or if they choose to stay in a self-imposed limbo.

The last song on the album, “Those to Come,” hints the limbo might continue. Like the best songs in Oh Inverted World, Mercer keeps it soft and acoustic and lets his haunting vocals stand out in the open unprotected. The song fades out to a gentle guitar lick and quiet whistling. “New Slang” from Oh Inverted World should have been the song to follow.

This limbo may be a good thing. Right now, Mercer lacks the song writing sophistication of Robert Pollard or the sonic genius of Jeff Magnum. The band is still maturing, as lyrics like, “I find a fatal flaw in the logic of love,” manage to find their way into otherwise great songs. Leaping too far could have ended in disaster. Hopefully after another year of touring, The Shins will be able to head back to Mercer’s basement and come up with a third album that raises them up a notch into the category of true indie rock masters.

Until then I will keep listening to Oh Inverted World and staring at the cover of Chutes Too Narrow. Even Brian Wilson could not move from All Summer Long to Pet Sounds in one stroke; Today and Summer Nights had to come first.