cd By indie standards, The Shins are huge. They’ve been helped along the way by a catchy tune in a McDonald’s commercial and the words Zach Braff put into the mouth of Natalie Portman in his film Garden State: Surely, The Shins Will Change Your Life will one day be the title of a book about the turn-of-the-millennium rise of independent rock. But The Shins’ greatest strength is that they’ve always seemed like a small band—like your band—even as their first two albums sold very solid numbers for the Sub Pop label.
 |
Which is why the opening few seconds of “Sleeping Lessons,” the first track on their new album, Wincing the Night Away, come as such a shock: There’s a single, spacey synthesizer pulse playing a scale, then the entrance of leader James Mercer’s vocals, sounding (with the studio processing) like he spent last year listening to Thom Yorke’s solo album. An acoustic guitar eventually folds in, followed by big, electric power chords until we find ourselves in the middle of a hugely appealing (and huge) rock song. The Shins, suddenly, don’t sound so small. But then the following track, “Australia,” feels more like the Shins of old, with its bouncy acoustic guitar strum and instantly appealing, singalong melody; the mid-tempo, Smiths-like “Phantom Limb” is almost as catchy.
 The Shins, former small fish of the indie rock world, upgrade to a bigger pond with 2007’s Wincing the Night Away. |
Clearly, the tunefulness of the band’s songwriting is what carries the day, no matter how their sound changes. So it’s disturbing when this quality begins to flag somewhere near the album’s midpoint. The ethereal mood piece, “Black Wave,” pokes around the edges of a structure without committing; the dirge-like “Split Needles” is modern rock for the working man and little more. These duffs would stand out less if The Shins weren’t so admirably committed to economy, with the 11 songs here whipping by in just over 40 minutes. For half an album, The Shins sound bigger and better than ever, but then something unnameable happens. Their sound has lost some personality and, for a band like The Shins, that counts for a lot.