The Shins - "Wincing the Night Away"

[joker]

The Shins will appear on SNL this weekend, and their new album is out January 23.

Track List:
"Sleeping Lessons" - 3:58
"Australia" - 3:56
"Pam Berry" - 0:56
"Phantom Limb" - 4:47
"Sea Legs" - 5:22
"Red Rabbits" - 4:30
"Turn on Me" - 3:41
"Black Wave" - 3:19
"Spilt Needles" - 3:45
"Girl Sailor" - 3:44
"A Comet Appears" - 3:49

The first single, "Phantom Limb", is available for free download here:

www.subpop.com/scripts/main/multimedia.php?key=bandname&value=Shins%2C+The

[joker]

www.stereogum.com/archives/004289.html

Someone May Be Wincing Over This One

If you've avoided the Shins leak in favor of securing the forthcoming record the legit way, you may wanna head to iTunes asap. Late yesterday, we started receiving a flood of emails like this one from reader Mike, whose indefinite-article omitting iTunes searching helped him stumble on a happy accident(?): Wincing The Night Away (and a bonus track) available two weeks early! Mike writes:

As you may have noticed, iTunes is plugging the fact that you can pre-order Wincing the Night Away for when it is officially released on January 23rd. Well, they seem to have screwed something up...because if you just do a band search for "Shins" you see an option pop up to buy the whole album, which includes the "bonus track" "Nothing at All" which you're supposed to get for buying early.

If you try buying the whole album, you're given the pre-order runaround, so you're best served with the "shins" search, snappin' it up track by track. (And "Nothing At All" is solid.) iPhone's awesome, but Apple's so busy with Macworld they're not paying attention to the storefront! Silly Jobs.

[oscillations.]

They are on SNL this weekend.
I'm UNdecided as of yet on whether they will make a semi-huge splash a la DCFC. I'm guessing they may chart in the Top 5 & go Gold, at least.

[joker]

^ Yeah I'm thinking they can sell around 50-60k first week at least.

[jaxxalude]

www.seattleweekly.com/music/0702/shins.php

[oscillations.]

Interesting article. Ironic to parallel an SNL appearance with a RS cover. VERY IRONIC INDEED.

[joker]

www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/13023865/review/13142814/phantom_limb

Rolling Stone gives the album 3 1/2 stars.

[oscillations.]

They got a sizable reaction to their cogent performance on SNL tonight. I expect this bodes well for them.

[joker]

They will be on Letterman next Tuesday night (1/23).

[jaxxalude]

Drowned In Sound

The Shins: Wincing The Night Away
Out: 22/01/2007
Label: Sub Pop

Last seen reducing lovely-bit-of-assassin-crumpet Natalie Portman to gushing tears in Zach Braff’s indie whingefest Garden State, hopes were riding high for a third instalment of profoundly joyous, literate guitar pop from Alberquerque’s finest.

So when Wincing The Night Away was leaked on the internet a full three months before its official release, it was snaffled up by the tech-savvy fans who swiftly registered their responses online. Consensus was split into two camps – “they’ve matured!” cried the diehards, while detractors pointed to the muted tone slick production as evidence that The Shins had lost some of their celebrated sparkle.

It certainly must have come as a bit of a shock. On ‘Sleeping Lessons’, appreggiated keyboards shimmer and pop like bubbles rising lazily from frontman James Mercer’s watery vocal, but it’s two-and-a-half minutes before the band kicks in proper. Now, two minutes is a long time in Shins-world. Gilded pop hooks soar and beat their hasty retreat; tangents are pursued with relentlessly skewed logic; harmonies stack up and songs twist and turn out of all recognition. So 180 seconds of naught but watery keys is potentially quite worrying. But then swathes of hazy, thunderous guitar noise roll into earshot and suddenly everything clicks into place: it’s a finely-wrought piece of suspense, and the kiss-off is terrific.

Look elsewhere on the album and you’ll find abundant evidence of a newfound maturity, and not in the r’n’b sense of the word. It’s in the slouching, Betas-through-an-opiate-haze beats of ‘Sea Legs’. It’s in the way that the trebly, Cramps-ish lullaby ‘Pam Berry’ segues into epic first single ‘Phantom Limb’, a typically obtuse meditation on small-town life. The latter is classic Shins, but the hooks are more ripe, the delivery less hurried and more sure-footed.

Mercer has cited insomnia as a major influence around the time of writing for the album, and that much figures. If Oh, Inverted World and Chutes Too Narrow were like ADHD-riddled cousins, unable to inhabit their own thoughts for longer than a few seconds at a time, then Wincing The Night Away is the Ritalin-gorged riposte. Its bounce is more bleary-eyed; its euphoric bouts tempered by a weird, waking-dream sensation that some dark presence is stalking the peripheries of its foggy vision.

New Mexico may be a long way from palm-strewn beaches of California, but Mercer remains the Brian Wilson of his generation, an unrivalled pop conjurer whose elegant way with a melody dispenses with the notion that pop’s strictly for tarts. On Wincing The Night Away, he dispels yet another myth, that maturity and pop music go together like foot and mouth. So says we: roll on middle age.

Rating:

[jaxxalude]

NME

The Shins: Wincing The Night Away


Third LP from New Mexico's finest indie export. It's their best yet.

The Shins' singer and songwriter James Mercer recently confessed that this record's rather strange title was down to the fact that he'd been struggling to sleep at night, so aware was he of the feverish anticipation around the album. No surprise there - the band's obsessed fans are as freakily passionate as any emo tribe, while Natalie Portman telling Zach Braff that The Shins would "change your life" in the 2004 cult movie Garden State can't have helped his blood pressure much in those long, lonely
nights either.

But you know what? Mercer really needn't have worried about the reaction. The group's third album, the follow-up to 2003's (2004 in the UK) brilliant 'Chutes Too Narrow', is their best yet, and is set to launch them into the big league. Well, if there's any justice it will anyway. The New Mexico four-piece have upped the ante considerably, producing a much more varied, confident sound without compromising one little bit. Contained within are genius, hook-laden pop songs (the single 'Phantom Limb', 'Turn On Me'), stunningly pretty psychedelia ('Red Rabbits', 'Black Wave') and, on the loping strut of 'Sea Legs', their biggest stylistic departure yet, there's even tasteful hip-hop style beats. Yes, you heard
that right.

The icing on the cake is Mercer's cryptic lyrics - like Dylan, you're never quite sure what he's actually on about most of the time, but when he mentions being "faced with the dodo's conundrum" ('Australia') or refers to "polymorphing opinion" on the woozy 'Spilt Needles', it sounds so good that in the end it really doesn't matter.

Alright, it's only January, but this is the first classic album of 2007. The only thing that should keep The Shins awake at night right now is wondering how the hell they're going to top it.

Alan Woodhouse

[joker]

It's their best yet

High praise. As someone who liked "Chutes Too Narrow" (and "Oh, Inverted World" even more), I'll settle for the new album 'merely' coming close.

[43dudleyvillas]

joker said:

It's their best yet

High praise. As someone who liked "Chutes Too Narrow" (and "Oh, Inverted World" even more), I'll settle for the new album 'merely' coming close.

Ditto. I think I'm going to need to listen to the record first and read the reviews later.

I enjoyed them on SNL...but the setting didn't seem right somehow. Like their sound and sensibility are too delicate for the setting or something.

[jaxxalude]

NY Times

THE SHINS
“Wincing the Night Away”
(Sub Pop)


There are singers who can evoke entire worlds with just a few well-chosen words. And then there is James Mercer, leader of the indie-rock band the Shins; he writes lines that run on and on. “Oh, Inverted World,” the Shins’ beautiful 2001 debut album, was full of unwieldy lyrics and lightheaded melodies. One song began, “ ‘Howdy, Lem,’ my grandpa said, with his eyes closed, wiping the eastbound dust from his sunburned brow/A life before doubt.” Somehow he made that heavy couplet float.

Then came the louder and faster 2003 follow-up, “Chutes Too Narrow,” and a film, “Garden State,” that built the band into the soundtrack and the plot. Soon the unassuming Shins had become million-sellers, in a sense. (To reach that figure, you have to add up worldwide sales of both albums.) The new CD, “Wincing the Night Away,” arrives on tiptoes.

“Sleeping Lessons” begins with Mr. Mercer and a keyboard; it’s more than two minutes before the full band hits. And the lyrics might (or might not) be a dreamlike chronicle of insomnia: “Go without ’til the need seeps in.”

Like the other Shins albums, this one is sneaky; it takes hold slowly but insistently. Mr. Mercer told Billboard that the glorious first single, “Phantom Limb,” was “a hypothetical, fictional account of a young lesbian couple” in a small town, but the lyrics are pleasingly indirect, like the melody.

He starts by running halfway up a major scale. (Instead of do-re-mi-fa-sol, it’s “Foals in winter coats”; Mr. Mercer is a hard-core anthropomorphist.) And every new handful of words brings with it a winsome new snatch of melody, until you’re not sure where the chorus is, or if there is one.

This album is a bit more warmblooded than the first two, full of characters trying to decide between trying anew or giving up. “Sea Legs,” which has a drum-machine beat and a hint of Morrissey, builds to a half-asked question: “The choice is yours: to be loved, come away from it empty of ...” Mr. Mercer doesn’t finish the thought. And “Australia” slowly comes into focus as the portrait of a mope: “Been alone since you were 21/You haven’t laughed since January.”

Buoyed by an incongruously cheerful bass line, Mr. Mercer glides toward a conclusion: “You don’t know how long I have been watching the lantern dim, starved of oxygen, so give me your hand and let’s jump out the window.” A cruel joke or a fantastic promise? In this low-gravity world, it’s hard to tell. KELEFA SANNEH

[jaxxalude]

Pitchforkmedia

The Shins
Wincing the Night Away

<sub>Rating: 7.0

While indie rock has embraced grander and more elaborate productions, the Shins have remained unlikely champions of uncertainty and understatement. Unlike many of their meteorically successful indie peers, the Shins don't want to change your life-- and that's a good thing, because the band's biggest strength is an uncanny gift for conjuring a deep, vivid, and palpable sense of the familiar. Many of the Shins' best songs evoke a feeling of comfort and closeness that's immediately recognizable but rarely experienced-- intimacy is the band's best weapon, amplifying the subtle ebbs and flows of their music so that the slightest injection of unease or melancholy hits with remarkable force.

On their third Sub Pop full-length, Wincing the Night Away, the Shins take a decisive but wobbly step out of their comfort zone, and in doing so sacrifice much of this musical/emotional proximity effect. While the band has taken a good deal of criticism for sounding "too average" or "boring," the ill-suited sonic punch of Wincing the Night Away throws the singular strengths of their previous work into stark relief. The almost-live sounding Chutes Too Narrow left plenty of room for singer James Mercer's excellent vocals to guide its songs both melodically and rhythmically. But on Wincing, too-loud drums and bass distract not only from the elegant movement of Mercer's melodies, but from the delicate harmonic tensions that underlie them.

That said, the first four tracks of Wincing are unerringly solid. Echoing the striking contrast of Chutes Too Narrow opener "Kissing the Lipless", Wincing's lead track, "Sleeping Lessons", builds from sparse, muffled arpeggios to full-on rock'n'roll. While slick and robust production doesn't flatter much of the record, it works well as a counterpoint to the song's quiet initial moments. "Australia" is a peppy rocker in the spirit of Chutes' best, elevated by a newfound confidence and expressive range in Mercer's voice. Single "Phantom Limb" is pure, lush pop, boasting a chorus that plays like the aural equivalent of that optical illusion where a staircase appears to ascend indefinitely.

With the exception of the excellent "Red Rabbits", the more noticeable aesthetic departures on Wincing don't fare as well. "Sea Legs", with its intrusive synthesized drum beat and lackluster arrangement, brings to mind that unfortunate Eve 6 song about putting your heart in a blender, while "Spilt Needles" comes off as sterile and overcalculated, despite its strong chorus. Still, the album finishes strong: "Girl Sailor" surpasses "Phantom Limb" in lyrics and overall structure, making it a likely contender for the album's second single, and "A Comet Appears" is beautifully orchestrated, if not terribly memorable, making it an appropriate closer for a record that often emphasizes texture over form.

There's a time-honored imperative to encourage bands for attempting to develop and expand, and the Shins could certainly take their music in many different directions with great success. But it's hard not to notice that the least adventurous tracks on Wincing the Night Away are generally the most rewarding. In many cases, the album's more experimental touches seem at odds with the natural elegance of Mercer's songwriting, making it hard to read the album as a shoddy blueprint of what a more "difficult" Shins record might sound like. Instead, Wincing the Night Away is a lovely and well-executed album and-- for the first time in the band's career-- nothing more.

-Matt LeMay, January 22, 2007</sub>

[jaxxalude]

Prefixmag

The Shins
Wincing the Night Away

Release Date: January 23, 2006
Label: Sub Pop
By: Justin Sheppard
7.5 / 10



That a scraggly group of Portland-by-way-of-Albuquerque thirty-somethings is somehow releasing one of the most anticipated albums of 2007 is no small feat. The back story of how we got here speaks volumes about the power of modern-day marketing schemes, but that's a discussion for another day. What matters for now is that, after being shoved headlong into the spotlight, the little indie band that could has fared surprisingly well with all the pressure that comes along with it. This isn't to suggest that Wincing the Night Away is the Shins' best album to date (in fact, it may be the band's least consistent effort up to now), but with all the stress and myriad delays, it's also far from the unmitigated disaster it could (and probably should) have been.



There was a lot of talk in the lead-up to its release about how the Shins were going to branch out on Wincing the Night Way, but, more than anything, the band seems to have returned to its roots. Gone are the naked, straight-laced pop songs from 2003's Chutes Too Narrow. Instead, we see a renewed-and improved-emphasis on atmosphere and quirky production, re-legitimizing the Brian Wilson comparisons that the band's champions were lauding them with what seems like forever ago.



Still, while the touches of mystery that this development provides are welcome additions, they can't mask the fact that Wincing the Night Away suffers from a fair deal of uncharacteristic filler. The principal offenders, "Sea Legs" and Red Rabbit," miss the mark: The former's plodding guitar strumming and bass line and the latter's bubbly vapidity sounding dull and uninspired. That both songs are lumped together in the middle of the album compounds this problem and really takes away from its flow. It's a shame, really, because a number of standout tracks are present. "Girl Sailor" (which ardent fans should recognize as a fully realized version of "Won One Too Many Fights") and "Turn On Me" are great, catchy pop songs, the urgent tone and shifting movements of "Split Needles" see the band exploring exciting new directions, and "A Comet Appears" is possibly the most beautiful song that James Mercer has ever written.



So, although Wincing the Night Away isn't without its warts, the band has come through with enough quality material to live up to at least some of the hype that's surrounding the album, thereby paving the way for serious commercial success. This album may not change your life, but it will likely change the lives of the Shins for the better.

[jaxxalude]

Stylus

The Shins
Wincing the Night Away
Sub Pop
2007
A-



et’s just get it out of the way: The Shins may have helped bridge the gap between shy indie boys and mildly adventurous sorority girls, but you probably didn’t leave your first experience with them an altered beast unless it led directly to you getting laid. Or you are Zach Braff. Different names for the same thing, so said Death Cab.

It’s been very weird since then. The erstwhile members of Flake Music made endlessly listenable half-hours of mixtape darts, but in terms of indie bands readily available at Best Buy that I’d first describe as “life-changing,” the Shins probably rank a little outside the Power 16 and somewhere in the pack of “other receiving votes” between New Pornographers and the Clientele. Even the band itself seemed wearied by unfounded expectations: the crowds would get larger but the sound didn’t, leaving them mousy and underwhelming in the spotlight. Seeing the Shins headline a show made you feel as if they’ve already maxed out their sustainable fanbase.

Wincing the Night Away takes steps to rectify that, but the more important thing is that for the second straight LP, the Shins faced immeasurable odds and somehow managed to set the bar even higher for next time. It’s likely that 2007 will be spent foraging for bolder and newer sounds, but Wincing the Night Away, like the two albums before it, will remain a great zero scale where you take your eyes off your laptop screen and remember that finding your favorite records isn’t supposed to be homework.

It’s crystal clear from the earth-toned cover that the Fruit Striped zip of Chutes Too Narrow has given way to a richer, more “mature” Shins. Maturity, though, becomes a bit of a bait and switch, as the most obvious instrumental tweaks turn out to be the least jarring or important. On first listen, it may sound like the glassy, opaque synths and brittle drums of “Sea Legs” are the result of artistic restlessness or even being cornered into hip-hop toe-dipping, but subsequent listens reveal how surprisingly natural the expansiveness of its outro becomes. The brackish psychedelics of “Black Wave” is really Oh, Inverted World‘s head in a darker, post-war cloud, as is the prickly “Split Needles,” which exposes the core of bitterness that sometimes lays under the surface of their simplest work (see the suicidal tendencies in “Young Pilgrims”).

What really makes Wincing the Night Away succeed is how the Shins’ moneymaker templates evolve into more complex tapestries. In a manner similar to the New Pornos, the third album becomes the most successful due to an implied heft that comes from a concerted effort to sound like a band rather than a singer-songwriter vehicle. “Saint Simon” may have been jaw-droppingly complex in melodic structure, but it still sounded…cute. The stately and plaintive “Phantom Limb” and “Turn on Me” aren’t heavy, they’re just big-boned. Call the booming drums and upward spiral chorus “tasteful” ways to push them towards full-bodied “rock” if you will, but none of this sonic trickery would matter if James Mercer didn’t remain a songwriter seemingly incapable of penning a bum tune.

The title of closer “A Comet Appears” might be read as an in-joke about how the Shins have basically made ten minutes of new music per year since Chutes Too Narrow, but it’s not like we were getting restless for a “statement.” The Shins don’t do that kind of thing…yet. But why get in a huff because they broke onto the scene with a style that couldn’t possibly be called revolutionary and spent their first three albums nudging its boundaries when they still have room to grow? And so what if the songs make you fight for your own meaning when you can play them again and again without wearing out their welcome? It’s not like we haven’t seen it before; of all Mercer’s obfuscations, removing the working title of Sleeping Lessons was the most important. Otherwise, it would been too obvious to connect the dots and realize that twenty years ago, this was probably how people talked about R.E.M.

Reviewed by: Ian Cohen
Reviewed on: 2007-01-22

[jaxxalude]

VH-1

The Shins Greet The Big Time With Insomnia And A Wince ...

'The idea of creating a popular record ... it's pretty nuts,' band's self-deprecating frontman says.

by James Montgomery

Much has already been written about the Shins' new album, Wincing the Night Away (which comes out Tuesday), including the fact that the majority of the songs were inspired by singer/songwriter James Mercer's bouts of "crippling insomnia."

Whether or not that's entirely true is debatable, but what's more interesting is the fact that, for the first time in almost 15 years of playing together, the Shins have become a band about which much is written. And more pertinently, very little of it is about their career-making shout-out in Zach Braff's 2004 flick, "Garden State," or one of their songs being featured in a McDonald's commercial (as their debut album's "New Slang" was in 2003).

Make no mistake, the film helped. It lifted the band to the upper echelons of the indie elite and helped to make the release of its new album something of an event, one that merited an appearance on "Saturday Night Live" two weekends ago and big-time expectations from the group's label, Sub Pop (which will reportedly ship more than 200,000 copies of Wincing — the largest first-week numbers in the venerable label's 20-year history).

Of course, the Shins are expected to deliver upon such expectations — which wouldn't be a problem if Wincing the Night Away weren't far and away the most challenging and diverse record the band has ever made. Such attributes rarely translate into big-time sales.

"I remember being in the mixing studio, listening to the songs and saying, 'This is good sh--, and people just need to listen to it more than once,' because it had grown on us while we were working on it," Mercer sighed. "If people would listen to it more than twice, then I'd like to think that it would take root. And that may be sort of difficult in this day and age ... but you have to have a bit of faith in your fans. I just wrote these songs and produced them the best I could. And if you liked my previous work, I think you're gonna like this — you're just going to have to open up a bit."

With all that's riding on Wincing, you can't blame Mercer for being a bit reluctant to discuss his expectations for the record. Quietly, he'll admit that he at least hopes it'll sell more that the Shins' 2003 effort, Chutes Too Narrow, which sold more than 415,000 copies, but aside from that, he's refraining from making any sort of firm predictions.

And, to be honest, he's a little bummed out that he's been put in this position in the first place.

"I'm trying to be a good businessman now, and that's been a challenge. It isn't something I enjoy, because the whole game is so foreign to me. I mean, the idea of creating a popular record ... it's pretty nuts," he laughed. "I'd much rather sit and work on songs. But it's my livelihood now — I'm about to have a family — so, you know, it's important."

It's strange, then, that with all those expectations and a baby on the way, Mercer decided to craft such an uncommercial, sonically somnambulant album. Because whether he'll admit it or not, the majority of Wincing does remind the listener of late nights — quiet suburban streets, hazy half-dreams and the purple-black sky moments before sunrise. Which is fitting, because it was in that bizarre sort of half-awake world that Mercer wrote the majority of the album. Just don't get him started on the whole "crippling insomnia" thing.

"I may have some sort of insomnia — it's not crippling," he allowed. "But it's something I wrestle with once in awhile if I've got a stressful situation or something to deal with. And so, during the recording of this record, I was up late quite often and just found myself in this other world: my neighborhood at night," he said, referring to his Portland, Oregon hometown. "It's sort of romantic, it's spooky. And so I went with that as a theme and tried to create this nocturnal vibe. There's something to be said about being awake when everyone else is asleep. There's a spirit to it."

Now, the only thing that remains to be seen is whether or not the Shins' fans are willing to catch that spirit.

"Like I said, we all just did the best we could do, and if the record turns out to be a big hit, it'd be pretty astonishing — and I think it would actually mean that something has changed in popular culture," Mercer said, before his cup quickly became half-empty again.

"But, then, how long does that last? How long until we go back to 'NSYNC and Backstreet Boys? I mean, they're probably already in training in a warehouse somewhere as we speak."

[jaxxalude]

Village Voice

Expectations Too Narrow
Pity the Shins, a good band now plagued by ubiquitous claims of greatness
by Nate Cavalieri
January 19th, 2007 3:30 PM

For pickup lines it beats astrology, but could the Shins really change someone's life? A tall order, but the elegant pop revisionism of the Northwestern band's first two records made them more worthy of the claim than other newcomers in the post–Elliott Smith drought. 2003's Chutes Too Narrow was a great record because the smarty-pants one-liners and aching countermelodies never sounded like intellectual calisthenics; after enough time, every other haircut band on the MFA candidate's iPod—from Destroyer to the Decemberists—sounded like thesaurus-driven poseurs by comparison. "But branded as life-changers since pouring out of Natalie Portman's earmuffs in Garden State, should it come as a surprise that the Shins show signs of performance anxiety on their third LP?"

Shins singer-songwriter James Mercer seems to have retreated from the dazzling spotlight into the Moog-lit glow of his basement, content to twiddle knobs and tiptoe around the unanimous declarations of his band's genius. But the skittish nature of Wincing the Night Away plays out in the opener, "Sleeping Lessons," which emerges from a fog of synthesizers by layering one careful instrument at a time. And while Mercer's writing is still more satisfying than that of his peers, filler tunes like "Pam Berry" and "Black Wave" are a far cry from the tenacious stuff that made Chutes the subject of lavish hyperbole. There are some captivating sonics—like the mellotron orchestra on "Spilt Needles" or the borrowed hip-hop beat of "Sea Legs"—but when Wincing musters up enough courage to drop the 808 and '80s affectation for a simple backbeat (on three tunes total: "Australia," "Turn On Me," and the catchy single "Phantom Limb") the results tend to sound like Chutes also-rans.

Maybe a hint to the problem lies between the choruses of "Australia," wherein Mercer sings of a girl who first faces "the dodo's conundrum" and later "the android's conundrum." The poor lass might represent the dilemma of the Shins themselves, unsure of what to do now or even what they are anymore. saddled with such a treasured past that their future, no matter how pleasant, will seem unremarkable by comparison, though perfect for the next poignant moment in Garden State II or a Grey's Anatomy episode. Thanks a lot, Natalie.

[jaxxalude]

Slant



The Shins
Wincing The Night Away
Sub Pop, 2007

heir recent stint as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live notwithstanding, the complete lack of pre-release buzz surrounding indie-pop heroes The Shins' third album, Wincing The Night Away, is a surprise, though it's refreshing to have the opportunity to approach any new album without several months' worth of hype having already established a clear pro or con bias. That said, Wincing The Night Away is an album that, by all rights, should come with a certain degree of expectation, if not actual fanfare—based either upon the band's elevated profile following the life-changing hyperbole thrown about by the pandering Garden State or the standing of the band's previous albums as two of the strongest pop albums of the decade. Instead, there's the feeling that Indie's commercial relevance may have already peaked (what else could the cancellation of The O.C. signify?), and many of the Internet tastemakers who'd previously championed the band met the early leak of lead single "Phantom Limb" with an indifferent shrug while waxing apoplectic over first-quarter albums from Menomena and Apples In Stereo.

This lack of a reception is at odds with what's most notable about Wincing The Night Away. While Chutes Too Narrow and Oh, Inverted World both succeeded by making frontman and principal songwriter James Mercer's unrivaled gift for melody sound effortless, Wincing The Night Away actively foregrounds the effort that went into making its outsized pop. In other words, it sounds like they tried, which is precisely the right thing for The Shins to have done in their situation, acknowledging the fact that, for the first time in their career, there would be sizable expectations of the final product. Not that their other two albums weren't meticulously crafted, but the slow crescendo, for example, of opener "Sleeping Lessons" from tinkly piano to raucous electric guitar power chords (recalling the Shout Out Louds' memorable "Very Loud") sounds calculated beat-by-beat. This kind of steely precision would likely weigh down a lesser band, but, as the surprising chord changes leading into the wordless chorus of "Phantom Limb" and the nervy bassline on "Sealegs" show, The Shins are able to experiment with their trademark sound without sacrificing any of their peerless melodicism.

If anything ultimately works against the album, it's Mercer's lyrics. He typically pulls off morose and wiseass equally well by balancing those two M/Os with a playful use of language. But a few of the songs here cross the line between cryptic and inscrutable. Sure, Mercer claims that "Phantom Limb" is about two teenage lesbians, and lovely closer "A Comet Appears" twists a line about some Black Dahlia-style facial reconstruction into a cockeyed love song, but how to parse "Out of a gunnysack fall red rabbits/Into the crucible to be rendered an emulsion" from "Red Rabbits"? Compared to that, the girl staring down both "the dodo's conundrum" and "the android's conundrum" in "Australia" has a more straightforward challenge.

Still, pop this satisfying isn't undone by just one or two lines, nor is it (in)validated by what's written about it weeks before it ever hits the shelves. That The Shins anticipated a reaction—perhaps even a full-on backlash—that hasn't yet materialized undeniably shaped the recording of Wincing The Night Away, leading them to take some risks that they might not have otherwise. Besides, it's not like a little performance anxiety is atonal with the band's aesthetic of fussy introversion. If the album isn't quite up to the lofty standards of their earlier work, it isn't off by much, meaning that Wincing The Night Away gives 2007 its first great pop record. If people haven't been talking about it yet, well, they should be soon enough.

Jonathan Keefe

[reception]

Reviewed by Edna Gundersen
USA Today
The Shins, Wincing the Night Away: (* * * out of four) Pop cult idols' third-time charm

One of the finest moments on this third album by Albuquerque’s indie-pop heroes is A Comet Appears, which, like the band itself, is no dazzling supersonic streak across the sky, but sweetly doleful with a wistful resonance. Wincing boasts nothing as delicately transcendent as New Slang, the Garden State track that brought mainstream attention, yet there’s much to admire in these gentle and sparkling melodies rooted in ’60s pop. In addition to solid, if understated, retro tunes, the band shows some daring in the trippy string-laden Red Rabbits and Sealegs, a romp of hip-hop rhythms and guitar sizzle.

[jaxxalude]

The Red Alert


The Shins
Wincing the Night Away
(Sub Pop)

James Mercer and The Shins surely appreciate the role that Garden State played in helping them rocket pretty much right past the indie shadows and into the mainstream sunshine, but it can’t be too fun to be inextricably tagged as the band that was guaranteed to change your life. While fans have waited for the follow-up to broad crowd pleasers Oh, Inverted World and Chutes Too Narrow, the expectations have just kept rising. If things went according to plan, Wincing the Night Away would be the sort of album that steadied an iconic indie label (Sub Pop) during tumultuous times in the industry, and would allow them to take bigger chances on new bands down the road. Everybody was waiting.

Mercer delivered. Wincing the Night Away is both hugely unassuming and impressively ambitious. It’s a record with plenty of gems; they don’t add up to a masterpiece, but the first two Shins records really weren’t masterpieces, either. Instead, we get evidence that, even though they are already indie-pop’s most widely beloved band, their best is quite possibly yet to come. In the meantime, the setback with Wincing is that there are some scattered misfires, like the prettily arranged but ultimately rather milquetoast “Red Rabbits” and “A Comet Appears.” Lead single “Phantom Limb” doesn’t match the easy euphoria of their past singles, but provides a clean showcase for Mercer’s continued evolution toward becoming a top-tier pop vocalist. Mercer clearly wanted to avoid rehashing previous works, but even the songs that stick closer to the comfort zone do it so nimbly and likeably (“Australia”) that it’s hard to not be swept along.

“Sea Legs” drops some skittering electronic beats and a super-funky-for-The-Shins bass line, building toward an orchestral swell and graceful vocal harmonizing. Viva Voce’s Anita Robinson provides a pretty harmonic foil to Mercer on “Phantom Limb and “Turn On Me.” “Split Needles” has a darker, more brooding sound, and wouldn’t have been out of place on Nada Surf’s Let Go. Opener “Sleeping Lessons” starts, well, sleepily, sounding almost like it’s being transmitted from underwater, and then the atmosphere around Mercer begins to shift and become more complex until, by the 2/3 point, it’s developed into a full-on rock song. It’s a rousing way to kick off, and should be an energizing staple in the live set.

“Turn On Me” is a clear highlight because of an irresistible vocal melody that almost makes it sound like the sunniest love song around, until the listener realizes that lines like “You had to know I was fond of you / Fond of Y-O-U” are followed by lines like “Though I knew you masked your disdain.” Both effervescent and bittersweet, it’s a little piece of pop magic, and further proof that The Shins aren’t just interested in finding the easy road.

— Adam McKibbin

[jaxxalude]

Drowned In Sound meets The Shins

[oscillations.]

www.metacritic.com/music/artists/shins/wincingthenightaway

79 rating
very strong


I hope they can hit 100k

[joker]

I'll be getting the CD this weekend. Six figures would be awesome. Down with Pretty Ricky!

[joker]

pitchforkmedia.com/page/news/Shins_Lily_Allen_Cold_War_Kids_Play_KCRW_Fundrai#40707

Shins, Lily Allen, Cold War Kids Play KCRW Fundraiser

Southern California NPR affiliate radio station (and adult-alternative mecca) KCRW has unveiled the details of its sixth annual A Sounds Eclectic Evening fundraiser.

This year, the event is scheduled for April 14 at Universal City, California's Gibson Amphitheater. The Shins, Lily Allen, the Cold War Kids, Rodrigo y Gabriela, and Bitter: Sweet will perform, and the Pinker Tones will rock the after-party.

Additional artists have yet to be announced, but "surprise special guests" are promised. Ooh, we hope it's James Blunt and Corinne Bailey Rae!

Proceeds will assist the station in digitizing its massive (60,000+ albums!) music library.

[🅳🅸🆂🅲🅾]

Billboard review:

Wincing the Night Away
THE SHINS
Label: Sub Pop

The Shins' third album probably won't change your life, despite what Natalie Portman insists. But "Wincing the Night Away" might actually be their best yet, a quietly ambitious effort that nudges the Shins' trademark indie pop into unexpected new directions. There's a drum machine beat, loping bass groove, strings and even flute on "Red Rabbits," ghostly reverb and noises on "Black Wave," and "Spilt Needles" drops the jangle in favor of a dark melody and surreal lyrics. Even more interesting is opener "Sleeping Lessons," which starts drumless and bubbly before flowering into a smile-inducing, major-key jam. Sweet, peppy tracks like the girl group-shaded "Turn on Me," "Phantom Limb" and "Australia" (with banjo) will give the devotees what they want and prove the Shins have few peers with those kind of things. A night well spent. —Jonathan Cohen

[Deleted]

#1 at iTunes

[jaxxalude]

Idolator


The Shins Revive A Very Nerdy "Midnight Madness" Tradition

When the Shins released Wincing The Night Away last Tuesday, they did more than make lovelorn bong-builders sigh with glee: They also might have helped revamp the once-thriving tradition of record-store midnight-sales parties. According to Billboard, store-owners are trying to get the jump on digital sales (and digital piracy) by once again turning an album release into an event opening the doors at 11:59 p.m. and counting on fans' enthusuasm to fill the floor:

Eric Levin at [Atlanta's] Criminal Records says he hasn't opened at midnight since the 2004 release of the Beastie Boys' "To the 5 Boroughs."

"I wouldn't blame it on the Beastie Boys," Levin jokes of abandoning the practice. "When you go anywhere online and hear any record, you don't have the need to go out at midnight. But I felt like there was a need for January 23. There's the Shins, there's Deerhoof, there's Of Montreal, and there's Menomena."

So how did it do? With little advertising outside of his store's mailing list, Levin says about 40 people showed up, and the store did $500 worth of business...Levin says it wasn't just the drawing power of the Portland, Ore.-based indie pop act. He points to the recent closure of Tower Records, a chain that was known for its weekly midnight sales, as having a slight impact on his reasoning.

"There was some post-Tower mentality to our decision," he says. "But to come back to midnight sales after going away from them was kind of a no-brainer. Let's give it a shot. It's how a lot of stores now look at vinyl. Vinyl went away, and now it's this wonderful new trend."

We're all for any practice that gets people in the stores, especially when it brings back our own fond memories of lining up to buy Use Your Illusion II, Pinkerton, and Tha Doggfather (not all in one night, thank god). But we were shocked to find that one Shins-shilling retailer used to the midnight sale to move nearly $2,300 of merchandise in just one hour. That must have been part of a very special "Buy the Shins, get a free shiv" promotion.

[oscillations.]

I'm still waiting for Jonathan Poneman's gloats.
I'm sure he wrote his speech weeks ago over lunch at a chilly Seattle cafe.

Still, I'm happy for Mercer & Co.!