Wincing The Night Away by The Shins
Four years I've been waiting for this. If you wait for anything that long you'll find when you get it it seems anti-climactic. That's how I sort of felt the first listen through on this. Don't get me wrong, I'm such a huge Shins fan that I was going to like it no matter what. It's just that their last release, Chutes Too Narrow, was such a fantastically good CD, it was going to be tough to measure up to that. It seems to me that the brains of the Shins, James Mercer, realized that he had the dubious responsibility of pleasing all the millions of fans while still moving the band forward musically. He couldn't have done so more perfectly. In fact, if you step back and objectively look at it, he probably walked that precarious tight rope better than anyone could have reasonably expected. Wincing the Night Away has just barely enough prior Shins to keep the fans happy, but more than anything it moves the band forward. The more I listen to it, the more I realize that while sometimes the past is very good, sometimes the future is even better despite the odds against it.
And then I realize that James Mercer and The Shins may be the smartest band ever. So smart that Wincing The Night Away may be the pinnacle of what pop music should be. I'm not saying they're The Beatles or The Beach Boys, but they definitely write songs as smart and poetic as John Lennon and they have the unbelievable pop sensibilities of the master himself, Brian Wilson. They grab you with their pop hooks, but everyone knows the fun of listening to The Shins is deciphering the lyrics, which like good poetry are always open to the reader's interpretation.
Phantom Limb and Girl Sailor will appeal to those who love what the band did in the past and want them to keep working the same formula. Sea Legs, Sleeping Lessons, Red Rabbit, and Black Wave showcase the band moving forward. To me, Sea Legs may be the strongest track even if it does get a little hippie jam band-ish towards the end. Close your eyes and listen to Turn on Me and you'll swear that it could have been found on any Cure release. Comparing The Shins to The Cure may be more accurate than one might suspect. The Cure were highly underrated and with complex lyrics and song structures The Shins may only achieve highly underrated status too. The general masses certainly don't seem smart enough to be able to comprehend them. The biggest difference between The Shins first full length release Oh, Inverted World and their second Chutes Too Narrow was the obvious increase in production values. The Shins were still unknown enough to still be called indie despite the production values. On Wincing The Night Away the production values again increase, enough so to say that The Shins are no longer indie. Normally that would mean that I would have to stop liking a band, but I think with The Shins that will be impossible.
Do yourself a favor and buy this CD. In December, this will be on everyone's Top 10.
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