You know when you roll up to an arcade machine, or fire up that game of Tetris you have on your desktop for moments of manufactured distraction, turn in an absolute blinder, crack out a smug smile, take an imaginary bow for your adoring public, only to find every top score is still owned by the same damn guy – even if you’re the only one who plays it? That is The Shins and the rest of indie music, that is. James Mercer (that’ll be j-merc2000 or something on the game he keeps thrashing you on) in particular walks that fine line between love and hate. So faultless is he with his intelligence, razor-sharp talent, creative vision and disciplined beard control that you can’t help but want to hate the man, if only to disguise your seething envy (and beards are hard to tame). But the fact is the only person you’ll end up hating is yourself, for loving him, dearly, because that’s really the only available response to the tender warmth of all that he and his comrades craft. He must be confusing to know.
The Shins have been immaculate for as long as we’ve known them, presumably they were conceived that way. You have to search hard for anything they’ve ever done wrong – all we can come up with is that the lumpen animated video for ‘So Says I’ annoyed us somewhat by not suiting the song that well. And so there was no reason to expect that their third album would be anything less than pristine. It just seems to go against logic for a band to retain such a high watermark of quality without erosion setting in somewhere. And yet every melody remains unchipped, every beat optimistic, every song sounds like it has something complete to say and they continue to broaden their colour palette with baby steps, never jumping too far ahead of themselves, but moving on regardless.
Opening track ‘Sleeping Lessons’ and the fluffy cumulus cloud of a single ‘Phantom Limb’ are both encouraged by fuzzy synthesised features, supporting the expectedly rigid Byrds-deluxe songrwiting, guide-ropes pulled tight. ‘Black Wave’ is so sparse and shadowy – new qualities for sure – it could be post-‘Amnesiac’ Radiohead, or perhaps The Dears with their buttons done up properly, a theme advanced through the distinctively beaten ‘Split Needles’, malfunctioning synth strings beamed in. It’s what ‘If You Tolerate This…’ era Manics should have sounded like. And ‘Pam Berry’ is a 1 minute shimmering My Bloody Valentine mirage drifting vaporously through the record like an orb of light. ‘Wincing the Night Away’ is an album that finds an increasingly pensive Shins, perhaps unable to avoid being absorbed by the pervading tensions of this century, finding their way in a modern world rather than just the one of their influences. But if this is at all miserable or low key, then it’s misery with a spring in its step.