The Shins: Wincing the Night Away (2007)

(Sub Pop)

!!! A+ RECORDING !!!

Believe me, I'm aware of the stretch of credibility that grade above is now creating in your mind. Fair warning: this is an indulgent blog post, but I'd be lying if I gave this album muted praise. Wincing the Night Away was the first Shins album I loved. I wasn't ready for them at their peak of popularity, hearing only a shrillness and strain that I mistaked for dilution (not aided, clichéd as it sounds, by Garden State's dogged promotion). What I missed about Chutes Too Narrow upon first hearing it in 2003 or 2004 was that it's a guitar album, of a precision and purity the preceding decade had seldom offered so invitingly. The band arguably derailed their career by waiting too long (four years) after the groundswell of Chutes hype to follow it up, and they've been MIA ever since. Along the way, however, they let a wonderful artifact slip in the form of Wincing. It's as much a product and evocation of its time as anything from the mid-2000s, I suppose; overflowing with mystery, optimism, and reflection, it is designed to contextualize the listener's environment -- simultaneously a populist record, a telling of its audience's story, and a closed-off ramble from James Mercer. The way these qualities mesh, fusing the best elements of the prior two albums, creates a remarkably durable and unexpectedly beautiful pop record, adventurous and comfortable, without subverting the band's still-relieving musical directness.

In short, this is modern guitar pop done the right way: challenging but immediate. No lo-fi quirks needed. If it recalls anything in particular, it's R.E.M.'s initial post-Bill Berry period, particularly Up, but overstuffed with hooks; the menacing, assured triumph "Spilt Needles" and ecstatic "Turn on Me" are mega-amplified pop atmospheres, easy to live in, easier still to love. Mercer's astounding (as ever) songwriting nails it down past Up's meandering vagueness -- the gentle experimentation passes over the electro-baroque flourescence R.E.M. captured into a colorful bliss.

Still, I can't fully divorce myself from my personal history with Wincing. It was September 2007 when I heard "Phantom Limb" for the first time, in the car one day after being dumped. My life's long-ago messes are not our concern here, but in this case, how sure can I possibly be that the resilience and cockeyed curiosity "Limb" articulates didn't move me (enormously) because of the state I was in? It still does, every time, and one of the top musical moments of the last decade for me is that final minute of "Limb," when the band just gives itself away to rhythm and harmony -- the lights go out but the dancing continues. Not to be corny about it. In years hence, after a brief no-recent-music lockout, I've discovered "Phantom Limb" is only the second best Shins song (after the immortal "Girl on the Wing," to which I wasn't introduced until 2009), but it remains hypnotic to me. If, as according to rumor, the song is lyrically a lesbian-oriented reframing of Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy," all the better; its tentative, hung-back, but open-armed emotion is more than fitting.

I've also learned since 2007, with the benefit of not having known the Shins as they progressed, that James Mercer is an extraordinary writer; no traditional rock band to surface in the 2000s was better or more productive in the classic sense. Nearly every Shins obscurity is worth seeking out, and as good as the band's performances are, it's Mercer's writing that makes this so. As usual for power pop, of which the Shins must be a new top-tier example, everything is subservient to songs. Scattered band comments and reviews suggest that Wincing is an album about hazy insomnia, which fits with its dreamlike textures. But to me as a new fan, it was about warm blue-lit evenings in the first few months of singledom in my adult life. Even opener "Sleeping Lessons," with its bubbling intensity building to an expressive burst, seemed to narrate my world at the time in a manner I can't imagine another record doing. The tapping exuberance of "Australia" was only a natural extension. Wincing made it an unforgettable pleasure to be late to the party on the Shins.

Really, I haven't a clue what James Mercer is talking about in any of his songs. Songs I consider absolutely classic like "Red Rabbits" and the terrifically jittery "Sea Legs" are about mood to me, and that in a sense is what I've found I hold so dearly about the Shins. In a clear-eyed guitar pop context, they push the buttons of vaguest feelings like My Bloody Valentine -- their conscious surrender to heartfelt prettiness is worthy of peak-period Beach Boys. Like the Beach Boys (who also infected Up), they are unafraid of absorbing influences uncool even to the subsequent lo-fi and chillwave movements. There's Muzak here, lounge, bubblegum, and the lushest of soundscapes, all in the context and service of what is, at the end of it all, an excellent guitar band.

I'm a longtime stalwart for not making a distinction between what is "best" or "classic" and what I love the most. Wincing didn't get great reviews and isn't discussed all that much. It might be passé at this point, whether the Shins are or not, but it means a lot to me. For me, it bears the mark of a top-caliber album: I can't imagine the last four years without it.