Four Stars
It is with great pleasure that I fire the opening salvo in amateur hour at the music reviews with a review of The Shins debut album, Oh, Inverted World. Fueled by the hype they received from their inclusion on the “Garden State“ soundtrack, The Shins have exploded out of Albuquerque based on the strength of this debut album and it’s not hard to see why. It isn’t perfect, but it is a special album in which the unlikely bedfellows of 60s-pop and early-90s British psychedelic dance converge and the result is and album with some memorable songs with nearly flawless melodies.
While the music defies categorization, describing it as Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd meets The Stone Roses sufficiently captures the mood of many of the tracks. The vocals on “Weird Divide” and “Girl Inform Me” in particular sound as though they could have come straight off The Piper at the Gates of Dawn right down to lyrics that include references to hallucinogenic objects such as a “furry moon.†A handful of the songs are reminiscent of simple Beatles pop tunes in their structure and upbeat vocals, but the selections with the deeper rifts and more brooding vocals are the ones that really stand out. These comparisons risk an over-simplification of the music, and the songs are really a complex blend of several musical styles. On “Your Algebra” there’s even a Native American influence. (Finally, there’s something that makes sense coming out of the Land of Enchantment.) The final result is a nearly flawless blend of harmony.
The true masterpiece of this album is the opening track, “Caring Is Creepy.” The lyrics would stand on their own as poetry. A powerful blend of imagery, stream-of-consciousness expression and philosophical waxing like the chorus’ “Never betray the way you’ve always known it is†blend in perfect harmony with the music. The nearly perfect vocal inflections that complement the music continue throughout the album. The result is a song whose dark undertones are contrasted against an uplifting movement and an indefinable sense of accomplishment that sets the stage for what is to follow.
The pace of the album lightens a bit with the two tracks that follow, but picks up again on a series of songs that compose the creamy nougat center of the album. “Know Your Onion!” is perhaps the most accessible stand-alone track. It lacks the complexity of the opening offering, but holds its own in terms of catchy rhythms and musical progressions. The abstract brooding and haunting lyrics return in full force for the sixth track, “New Slang.” (Which, along with “Caring Is Creepy,” are both included on the Garden State soundtrack) Opening with “Gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth,†this song builds musically and lyrically to an elevating chorus. Followed by quality offerings “The Celibate Life” and “Girl On The Wing,” the heart of this album leaves nothing to be desired.
Coming in at just over 33 minutes, the album is undeniably short and it does weaken ever-so-slightly on the last two tracks. Considering the final cut, “The Past and Pending” comes in at nearly five and a half minutes on its own, the slight stumble is just enough to withhold it from the five-star ranking, which I intend to keep meaningful by using only on the absolute elite. That’s not to say short albums can’t achieve the ranking. Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline and the Pixies Doolittle would both attain that Holy Grail or rakings with similar running times. Combining the strong, but unspectacular finish with the slightest of imperfections in a couple of the Syd Barrett genre offerings is just enough to hold this one back. That’s not to say this album won’t stand the test of time, because it will. In fact, this could easily be the best debut album from a band since Luna’s Lunapark , and it’s been over a decade since that release. Them’s strong words, but this album is worthy.
It’s remarkable that, probably at the same time Tom was composing this post I was composing an email to him asking him, among other things, if he had ever heard of a band called The Shins. My route to discovery (which had not yet reached fruition) was a commercial for the new Sponge Bob Squarepants movie, which features songs from The Flaming Lips, Wilco, and some band called The Shins. Keeping good company is always a noteworthy attribute of good artists of all sorts, and this appears to be no exception. I will be eagerly awaiting Tom giving me a ripped off copy of this CD. And I have to say as an aside that maybe it’s time we give Hollywood some props for digging up good bands with what seems like increasing frequency. Even car commercials are starting to have good music on them these days. And of course, California also has the mark in its favor of having been solidly blue in the last electoral debacle.
Car commercials have rocked for a while, with Acura really raising the bar with Galaxie 500 and Flaming Lips in their ads. Mitsubishi gets honorable mention and those ads have even made me change the way I think about Barenaked Ladies. Years ago VW had one with an Enya song that was just a women in a long, flowing skirt walking through an autumn scene to her car that was just a pleasure to watch.
Anyway, I hope The Shins review helps and isn’t too over the top. I have to admit, on re-reading it, I might have been trying a bit too hard to sound like an actual music critic and I don’t think I exactly pulled it off.
To follow up my aside about short albums, I was thinking more about this on the way home and came up with a few others that I’d probably give five-stars. Neil Young’s “Harvest” and The Beatles “Revolver” have to be there, and I’d think about Joni Mitchell’s “Blue.” I bet Greg would give that one five stars, but I think I might stop short and give that one four. As though anyone cares, but for some reason this became quite a mental exercise for me.
The first time I really noticed great music in commercials was Volkswagen. They had one with Nick Drake’s ‘Pink Moon’, and another with that ‘Da Da Da’ song. Did Mitsubishi also have the commercial with that Dirty Vegas song ‘Days Go By’? That was pretty good. If you don’t like the techno flavor of that song, the acoustic version, which I first heard on Radioio, is even better.
I think NPR has an article on how TV has become the new radio. Interesting read. I will dig up a link and post it back here.
Yeah, I almost mentioned the Mitsubishi Dirty Vegas song and I forgot completely about VW’s Pink Moon which is one of the all-time best.
I heard about the Shins through the awesome movie, Garden state, bought this cd (oh inverted world) and cannot stop listening to it! It is such a great collection of inspiring poetic music. This is the sort of compilation that makes me angry at a higher being for not ensuing in me this sort of talent and presence. Why oh why? I can’t stop listening to this CD.
I just recently saw Garden State, where the Shins feature prominently, even mentioned by name. Pretty good movie. It sounds like the soundtrack might be awesome, as well. The Shins, Nick Drake, that “Beauty in the breakdown” song from Frou Frou, Iron and Wine doing a cover of the Postal Service “Great Heights” song (or is it the other way around?), and others I can’t place the names right now. On the short list of albums to pick up.