Shins - Oh, Inverted World
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Music CD Cover
Artist: ShinsBrand: SHINS
Edition: Music CD
Format: Enhanced
CD Release Date: 2001-06-19
Music Label: Sub Pop
Soundtracks:
- Caring Is Creepy
- One By One All Day
- Weird Divide
- Know Your Onion!
- Girl Inform Me
- New Slang
- The Celibate Life
- Girl On The Wing
- Your Algebra
- Pressed In A Book
- The Past And Pending
Free Music Notes for Oh, Inverted World
Free Music Review: "A Luscious Mix of Words and Tricks"
Hit: 5 Stars
Two full-length CDs (and just over an hour) into their recording career, The Shins have proven themselves to be the best new band of the 2000s. Not the coolest, not the best-dressed, not the sexiest, not the most trendy, not the most well-groomed, just the best. With a sound that is both fresh and retro, James Mercer and company have brought heartstring-tugging tunes in pop, folk, and psychedelic flavors to hundreds of thousands of twenty-somethings. With 11 songs and a running time of 33:11, their debut Oh Inverted World is the perfect length, even though each song isn't exactly 3:01 long: two songs are just under 2 minutes, and another is over 5. While the latter song may be a bit long, the shorter ones sound as complete as an equally short William Carlos Williams poem does.
Lyrically, I do believe that it is apt to compare James Mercer to Morrissey and Stuart Murdoch, even if he isn't as strong of a vocalist as either of them. Alas, this can result in some pretty obscure lines, "New Slang when you notice the stripes/The dirt in your fries" just to mention one of the more obvious ones. (And I hope that the irony of the fact that this song was used in a McDonald's commercial isn't lost on too many people.) The sublime "The Celibate Life" seems to be about a guy who catches his girlfriend cheating, but what the lyric "No skirt while chemicals danced on you head" means is anyone's guess. Meanwhile, lyrics like "I never got cold wearing nothing in the snow" reveal a guy who has tried to immunize himself from from feeling anything at all, though "my head's to the wall and I'm lonely" reveals the futility of his effort to do so. Mercer's adolescent-sounding voice lends itself perfectly to such cries for help.
Anyone who has the Garden State soundtrack and therefore thinks that they don't need this CD is sorely mistaken. Granted, "Caring Is Creepy" and "New Slang" are brilliant and deserve to be classics, but the same can be said of "One By One All Day", "Know Your Opinion!", "The Celibate Life", and "Girl On the Wing". Smaller gems include the disembodied "Your Algebra", which adds a haunted house-like quality to the latter half of the disc, and Beach Boys lilt of "The Weird Divide", which seems to be the only sign of a happy sentiment on the whole record ("shut out, pimpled and angry" is more representative of how Mercer recalls his life thus far).
2003's Chutes Too Narrow is a very different animal than Oh Inverted World. While the former is sparse, the latter abounds with the sort of decorative production that is so absent from its follow-up. Oh Inverted World is not overwhelmed by the echoey, atmospheric production, though, and the songs have plenty of room to fully form. The tracks themselves are very much individual entities, but they combine to form a brilliant organic whole, even if the record loses bit of steam with "The Past and the Pending". Moreover, the songs are punchier and more meaty than the ones on Chutes Too Narrow, but the fact that there are differences in the production and songwriting style is a moot point. Just as Chutes Too Narrow was the best CD of 2003, Oh Inverted World is -at the very least - a candidate for the best CD of 2001.
Oh, Inverted World Poster
Hailing from Albuquerque, NM, The Shins sprung from the ashes of Flake/Flakemusic in 1997 (though those previous incarnations date back nearly a decade) - same members, different instruments, different approach. Counterpoint guitars have given way to a single guitar pitted against calculated keyboard passages; swarming indie rock machinations led to pop-based melodic endeavors.Something extraordinary is afoot in Albuquerque. The Shins' first big-time record, Oh, Inverted World, combines mysterious narratives with golden song structures, resulting in lavish and opulent indie pop. Touches of Neutral Milk Hotel's lyrical majesty and the nostalgic swirl of Echo and the Bunnymen abound. But the Shins' music--rich with acoustic guitars, flickering rhythms, and Casio-tone keyboards--is distinct and peculiar. Worry mixes with abstraction throughout, and while James Mercer sings, "You led no celibate life / No skirt while chemicals danced on your head / You stole the keys to this ride / And your fables are falling tonight," you may wonder if he's been routing through your fondest, most troubling memories. This vital album is easily among 2001's most distinguished recordings and one of the best Sub Pop releases to date. --Thom Arno
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