The Shins - Wincing the Night Away
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Music CD Cover
Artist: The ShinsBrand: SHINS
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2007-01-23
Music Label: Sub Pop
Soundtracks:
- Sleeping Lessons
- Australia
- Pam Berry
- Phantom Limb
- Sea Legs
- Red Rabbits
- Turn On Me
- Black Wave
- Spilt Needles
- Girl Sailor
- A Comet Appears
Free Music Notes for Wincing the Night Away
Free Music Review: This is a classic album, and gets 2007 off to a great start!!
Hit: 5 Stars
Wow. This album will go more than Gold. The extremely indie sound is very impressive. It isn't often that you get an album where the group's natural, instinctive talents shine through this brilliantly.
Realeases of last year such as The Fray's popular album are great examples. But this album brings a fresh sound to the music industry's current emo craze. Let's do a breakdown:
Firstly, the album has a late 60's gloss, almost Beach Boys sound, which The Shins have emulated for some time. The album ventures to the psychadelic slightly, and sometimes sounds like a Beatles Revolver redux. Yet the sound that The Shins have created is modern. Slight remembrances of The Dandy Warhols and others sometimes come to mind, but no other sound quite matches, which shows that The Shins have worked to create their own sound.
"Sleeping Lessons" gets the album off to a great start. Remeniscent of a 311 Transistor track, the tone of the album is established with a translucent slightly blues-techno sound that is somehow very refreshing and very pleasing to hear. I think it is the fact that there is great tonality and that James Mercer is an incredible singer and songwriter. The song then transforms into a near Coldplay rhythmic progression. A great collaberation of sounds.
"Australia" starts out with a near Gary Lewis And The Playboys feel with the underlying vibraphone and catchy melodic tunes and progressions.Very cool and inventive. It's rock you can dance to.
"Pam Berry" an abstract, quick track that shows the band's roots (refer to the album Oh, Inverted World - "Caring is Creepy"), and shows off their excentric capabilities. The reverberant-overdriven sound then carries to the next track.
"Phantom Limb" is so near Beach Boys, yet so entirely modern. It nearly sounds like the college rock sound of R.E.M. The awesome composition lends the listener the hope for the future of music. Mercer is a modern day Brian Wilson. He proves with this track that he understands harmony and dominant blues, jazz, and rock chords. A favorite.
"Sea Legs" is a separated, underlaiden rock track. It reminds me of the Verve. The oscillating bass line is nearly 70 percent of the track's makeup, and is opposite that which has come before it so far on the album. It may have benefitted from a bit more hard rock. Something like a Collective Soul sound from their track "Heavy". However, I do enjoy the 311-like sound at the end of the track. Could have been a bit more driven though.
"Red Rabbits" I won't lie. I don't know exactly if this categorizes as a 60's riff, or a simple Wailers track, but it is a cool track that deserves to be included on an album such as this. The Shins came up with a great song here with an uplifting, relaxed, progressive message and tonality. The lyrics follow and match exactly.
"Turn On Me" 311 Music anyone? I don't mean to compare The Shins to their songs so much, but there are many parallels in this album. If you liten to their previous album "Chutes Too Narrow", the track Done For Good has a very country rock-like sound. Something like the Eagles or Alabama. However, "Turn On Me" does an about-face, and takes the twang guitar and replaces that signature sound with surf-riffs that really makes this track great. This is a fun track that I can listen to over and over. And it is nicely not overdone and poppy, but at the same time, deliver's a melody you can remember and repeat to yourself. Nicely upbeat and bluesy. The Shins also know how to end songs!
"Black Wave" Slightly darker, more meloncholy and innerly reflective. This track gives pause to the album, and creates a nice transition, showing a deeper side to the music of the band. The poetic lyrics add a perfect mood to the underlying spacey tunes.
"Split Needles" returns us to the normal, all encompassed, yet mellow sound of The Shins. A great addition to modern rock.
"Girl Sailor" This track adds an Island riffs sound to the repretoire of the album. A reflective track, nicely positioned on the album, makes you look back on things. It makes you wonder what the band was thinking of as they wrote the song...what brought on the thoughts that lead to the mood of the track?
"A Comet Appears" Re-enter the cool, post-modern poetic lyrics. This track does not close the album, it simply makes it a continuum that leaves you hangning, as a book of a series would. It think that is intentional. It makes you want to listen to the album again, almost as if your mind can't beleive that such an original sound is possible in modern rock by using musicality once again. It makes me want to listen to previous albums again as well.
Overall, it is a masterpeice. There are always things to improve, but this album is one that is very close to matching it's potential. I highly reccomend it, especially if you like music that isn't simple or "mainstream" corporate music. You'll definately listen to this album many times through the years.
I also reccomend any of their previous releases. The Shins are a great band to add to your collection.
Wincing the Night Away Poster
It could be said that the Shins third album, Wincing the Night Away is the most heavily anticipated record of 2007. Post Garden State notoriety, the band has reached beyond their indie-darling status to something approaching mainstream recognition. Recorded over time in James Mercer's basement studio, Phil Ek's Seattle digs, and in Oregon City with veteran engineer Joe Chiccarelli (Beck, U2) - Wincing the Night Away is a whole new animal. It is the sound of a band growing up and out. Mercer's infectious, indelible melodic style is still at the core, and unfaltering. But anything can happen around it - and in this case, it does. Channeling a Morrissey vibe, "Sea Legs" pairs a hip-hop (yes, hip-hop) beat with lush melodic lines and searing guitars. Elsewhere the band toys with tweaked-out piano steeped in psychedelic strings ("Red Rabbit"); fractured synth samples ("Spilt Needles"); gauzy, arpeggiated keyboards cloaking thunderous anthems ("Sleeping Lessons"); and, taking cues from early Jesus and Mary Chain albums - sweeping, fuzztoned epics ("Phantom Limb"). Finally, "Turn on Me," "Girl Sailor" and "Australia" are the lilting, exhilarating, rollicking, rock-solid pop songs we've all come to covet from The Shins.Indie-rock's hardest-working slackers finally release their third album, on which they've made the clear transition from bedroom-pop to stadium-rock without losing everything that makes them great. Those soaring vocals that sound like the unholiest collision of the Cure and Simon and Garfunkel, the nimble pop hooks that are never overused, those lyrics that are as self-deprecating and razor sharp as they are playful--dude, it's all still here. Relax, you can still swoon. Musically, there are some new elements, from the ragged surf-rock that propels "Pam Berry" to the near hip-hop beats of "Sea Legs" and percolating electronica on "Sleeping Lessons" (which two thirds of the way through shows Band of Horses how to write a song). Wincing is neither the clever genre recombinant exercise of their second album nor is it the perfect little self-contained universe of their debut. This is not the Shins' best album; it's their growing pains third record. James Mercer has learned how to shout his words so the folks in the back row can hear; a slightly harder edge and more confidence is on display. But it doesn't gel fully. Mercer remains one of the most talented songwriters working in pop today, and what this album proves is that the group deserves to move beyond the little Zach-Braff-movie-watching, This-American-Life-listening, Frappuccino-sipping demo-ghetto they've found themselves in. Wincing confidently bristles with stupendous and smart rock music that deserves to be enjoyed by your kid brother and your folks as much as your dorm-mates. --Mike McGonigal
The Shins Get Their "Sea Legs"
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