Little Lies and Massive Dreams

My name is Bear. I play in a band called Talking About Commas and live and work in Providence, RI. I like music.
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Jan 8, 2007

Album Review: The Shin's "Wincing the Night Away"


Congratulations are in order for this new album from Zach Braff heroes, the Shins. The band, which could easily churn out simple strummy indie pop forever, shows signs of true growth with the release of their third album, Wincing the Night Away. The Shins previous albums ranged from abrasive almost annoying rockers to sweet, wonderful acoustic love songs. The new album takes both of those sounds and meshes them together perfectly to create a “new” Shins for the 21st century.
The record starts with a soft lilting arpeggio and James Mercer’s atypical voice welcoming you to ponder something besides cheesy love and obscure similes before launching into a driving rock beat not unlike many early Strokes songs. “Sleeping Lessons” proves the Shins are still figuring out their sound, but they know where they want to go. The album’s single “Phantom Limb” is probably the song closely related to the bands two previous albums. I don’t really care for the song until the “oh oh ohs” at the end which build nicely.
My favorite track is “Sea Legs” which finds the band experimenting with break beats and syncopated strumming. This song kind of sums it up, the band isn’t just creating a nice back drop to Mercer’s simple acoustic ditties. The four members are consciously creating a sound for themselves. Less strumming, more harmonies, and much more thought out bass lines and arrangements. The Shins are also incorporating more synth sounds into their music which creates beautiful textures similar to Nigel Godrich’s influence on Beck albums.
Wincing... loses a little steam towards the end before it is saved by “A Comet Appears”, a nice slow tune that could have easily been on Chutes to Narrow. The only difference, James is writing about broader sentiments and less first person mush. Lyrics like “Let’s carve my aging face off, fetch us a knife, start with my eyes. Down so the lines form grimacing smile” and “I click my heels, get the devils in line. A list of things I could lay the blame on that give me a way out. A tool we devise to make sinking stones fly” show this man is dealing with changes in his life. After seeing the Shins at Vegoose in 2005 I figured the fad would pass and we wouldn’t hear much from them. Hopefully, this album proves me wrong. We’ll let the kids decide.

Key Tracks: "Sleeping Lessons", "Sea Legs" and "A Comet Appears"

rating: triple

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