Today a special package arrived in our offices. SubPop sent over a fat envelope filled with copies of the new Shins record, Wincing the Night Away. Within fifteen minutes of their arrival, the sounds of various tracks competing for audio space were blaring out of multiple editors’ stereos like a giant indie-rock performance-art project. Yes, yes, we just got our hands on this album today, but we’re already madly in love.
Thanks to the ubiquitous Garden State soundtrack, the Shins have made songs like “Caring Is Creepy” and “New Slang” the stuff of car commercials and soccer-mom tape decks. But on the new joint, they’ve grown up and out of their pretty psychedelic Sixties pop and, you know, My Bloody Valentine referencing. In a good way. the Shins are just more experimental and more confident here, pairing strings, New Wave synths and what the band claims is a “hip-hop beat” with the soaring vocals and perfect, transcendent lyrics we’ve come to expect from these quirky power-pop-makers.
We’re going to have a new favorite song tomorrow, but for now we’re getting behind the elegiac “Turn On Me,” which opens like the Cramps covering the Supremes and evolves into this gorgeous, lilting serenade to heartbreak. It also features the cutest line in a sad, sad song that we’ve ever heard: “You had to know I was fond of you, fond of y o u.” Oh boys, fondness doesn’t even begin to describe it.
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- Portions of Album Content Provided by All Music Guide © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC.
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