The Shins - Oh, Inverted World
(Subpop)
Oh, Inverted World continues the tradition of lovely summer albums that was started by the Beach Boys in 1966 when they issued Pet Sounds. And don’t think that’s where the comparison between those bands ends. Oh no. But for now that’s an aside.
I first got to see the Shins in action when they opened for Modest Mouse in September. While I wasn’t completely swayed by their melodic indie rock, it was likeable enough, and they were fun to watch. Not as fun as the Mouse, of course, but that’s another aside. Continuing…
This album has received a shitload of hype, and it’s pretty much deserved. It starts out with the awesome "Caring is Creepy," a song whose title is reason enough to think it’s great (but don’t get me wrong! The song is super!). It’s a blend of Cure-ish vocals and a melody that sounds similar to the Promise Ring’s "Tell Everyone We’re Dead." While the lyric is not as impressive as that Ring song (being pretty much the only Promise Ring song that I think has decent lyrics), they’re still pretty nice. To give you an idea of the feeling of this song, here is a neat little couplet: "all these squawking birds won’t quit/building nothing, laying bricks." Therein lies the greatness of the Shins: juxtaposition. This is a fucking dark album, lyrically, most of the time, but the songs are sunny and bright. You know you’re intrigued.
The standout is easily "New Slang," a song which couples it’s desolate lyrics with baroque and melancholy instrumentation. And it’s brilliant. Lead guy James Mercer sings in a plaintive falsetto. A tambourine keeps a steady beat in the back. This whole thing is pretty great. "Dawn breaks like a bull through the hall/never should have called/but my heads to the wall and I’m lonely." And do you know something? You really feel the emotion radiating. Yes, emotion. A commodity that’s been bastardized by the hundred shitty emo bands that have cropped up in the wake of the Promise Ring (there’s that reference again!). But please, don’t be mislead by that comparison. The Shins are emo like Neutral Milk Hotel is emo: having genuine feeling in their songs but not conforming to the dumb clichés. And seriously, if anyone calls Neutral Milk Hotel emo, there’s going to be a world of hurt.
Back to the Beach Boys comparison. I’m not going to say that what these guys are doing is necessarily original. It does reminisce on a lot of great albums that came before it, but where some would take that original sound and copy it, the Shins... well, they sometimes copy, but they also modify, with their own unique slant on things. And while it isn’t as original as, say, Destroyer, it’s still pretty damn sweet.
The only real misstep on this album comes with the awkward "Your Algebra," something that sounds like it’s trying to be an experiment in shoegazing that falls short. And boy does it fall short. This song shouldn’t be on Oh, Inverted World. It should be on... I dunno, a Bows album. Or Eltro. Yeah, Eltro... or, hey, just pick your favourite shitty shoegazer Slowdive/Ride ripoff. Any one of them fit. What I’m saying is that “Your Algebra” isn’t very good.
As for the rest of it… I’m enjoying this. Oh, Inverted World was in my soundtrack for a long car ride between Toronto and Grand Bend. We listened to it twice, once in the afternoon and once at night, and both times it stood out. This is pop music at it’s finest, just don’t call it “emo”.
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