When The Shins burst out of a decade or so of indie beard-stroking near-obscurity and into the alternative big time in 2007, they did it with an album stuffed to the gills with pop pleasure, pandemicly catchy hooks and indefatigable amiability.
That tremendous opus, Wincing The Night Away, allowed them to step up and into a slot just to the left of the mainstream spotlight, a moment that even the most aching of indie hipster fans would not have denied them, given the years served grafting at the wheel of college level popularity.But a step up and, as is often the case, a step out onto a larger label – the unending cool of Sub Pop cast asunder for the double prize of the satisfaction of being on singer James Mercer’s own label Aural Apothecary while being underpinned and pushed by the deeper pockets of Columbia Records – comes with a responsibility; an aim at the high life requires a consistency of product in terms of both musical quality and unit-shifting saleability.
Wincing’s long-awaited follow-up, Port Of Morrow, walks a very fine line between those two, often impossibly ham-stringing demands and just about manages to come out the other side with its head up – or at least unbowed.
Of course, much has changed in the five years between the two long players – the aforementioned Mr Mercer has enjoyed a sojourn with producer-at-large Danger Mouse under the moniker of Broken Bells and, on reassembling for Morrow’s recording, now counts himself as the only original Shins member left in the band.
Both factors poke into several of the songs on show. While nothing present is as open in its electronica as Broken Bells’ tunes, It’s Only Life and Bail And Switch acknowledge such beginnings, and the presence of one fifth of Modest Mouse can be felt in Fall Of.
Yet what is missing from Port of Morrow and what ultimately stalls its progress is the lack of a truly stand-out tune. It ebbs and flows affably through ten more-than-mediocre, less-than-large tunes in a way that mildly entertains without ever catching a hold on a memory or unleashing an earworm.
As a result, it is an album which fills a hole, marks a return, and simply says hi, without ever totally announcing its presence and laying the inevitable feeling that maybe, just maybe, Wincing was the band’s star moment and from here on in, it’s a slow slide back to near-obscurity.
As always, a sound review from Mr Long. However, I think this album gets better with every listen,and it also worked well live. Being a massive fan, I’m definitely a bit biased, but I think this album will be well received, if only by existing fans.
I take issue with the ‘Shins exploded in 2007′ intro. Garden State alone launched them into the mainstream, depending on your understanding of the term. From what I’ve heard from this record, Mercer is writing some of the most interesting music of his career. While I’ve never really been a fan, I appreciate his ambitious little flurries which seem to be in abundance on the new single alone.