They Can Cut the Mustard

The Shins are indie rock's good guys. Refreshingly free of East Coast art-school pretension and hipster posturing, the Albuquerque, NM quartet scored a surprise smash hit with their 2001 debut, Oh, Inverted World (Sub Pop), a stunning album that ended up on countless year-end best lists and gave rise to a nearly non-stop tour that culminated this September with three (!) sold out shows at Manhattan's Bowery Ballroom.

The Shins's brand of sunny, slightly spaced-out pop makes no claims to artistic innovation or über-coolness; it is just good music, and as the success of Oh, Inverted World proved, people like good music. With their long-awaited follow-up, Chutes Too Narrow (released Oct. 21), the Shins face the daunting challenge of living up to the extremely high standards set by their debut.

Fortunately for fans, Chutes Too Narrow "cuts the mustard," as Shins frontman James Mercer put it on Oh, Inverted World. The band has managed to change its sound considerably while still remaining faithful to pop ideals (hummable melodies, catchy instrumental hooks, and so on). Much of the difference between the two albums might be attributed to the fruits of extensive touring: Chutes Too Narrow dispenses with many of the quirky synth effects and reverb-drenched guitars and vocals that so characterized the first album, resulting in a more "live" sound, while the often baroque arrangements of Oh, Inverted World are here exchanged for a more straightforward four-piece rock band approach.

Stylistically, James Mercer's songs have taken on something of a harder edge. "So Says I", the album's first single, and "Turn a Square", are more aggressive and driven than anything on the first album, and provide the rather brief Chutes Too Narrow (it clocks in at around 33 minutes) with a steady and unrelenting momentum. For better or worse, Mercer also ventures into hitherto uncharted territory, taking a shot at country on the plaintively beautiful "Gone for Good," and melancholy folk on "Pink Bullets" and "Those to Come."

While the Shins tackle all their endeavors with equal aplomb, the stylistic variation present on Chutes Too Narrow results in an album that is ultimately less coherent and unified than Oh, Inverted World. The downtempo acoustic tracks would sound fine in isolation, but in the context of the album they feel like speed bumps or forced intermissions from the album's otherwise breakneck pace.

Speed bumps aside, much of Chutes Too Narrow finds the Shins returning to what they do best, namely making great pop music. The album's opener, "Kissing the Lipless," represents the band at their peak: on the surface it is a catchy guitar pop song, but it is something far stranger and deeper as well, deploying Mercer's wailing tenor vocals and drummer Jesse Sandoval's throbbing drumbeat to evoke the pain of lost love. "Saint Simon," probably the album's strongest track, likewise feels like a pop song drawn from deep within the soul. Its initial melodies give way to unexpected new ones as it unfolds in multiple suite-like sections, culminating in an ecstatic wordless climax in which lyrics are left behind in favor of supremely expressive syllables like "la" and "da."

As on Oh, Inverted World's "New Slang," it's as though all singing and controlled communication were suddenly sublimated into pure melody, a complete and beautiful expression of all that could possibly be expressed. It's moments like these--call them strange, call them quirky, call them off-the-wall--that make the Shins a great band; they come out of nowhere to overwhelm the senses, and operate by their own arcane and indistinguishable rules.

Despite what the cartoonish cover art might suggest, Chutes Too Narrow is no lightweight day-glo pop record. It is serious music, and the Shins are a serious band. James Mercer's attempts at greater solemnity and emotional breadth may sometimes weigh down the album's more upbeat components, but they are indicative of the possibility for the Shins to grow into a band even more eclectic and fascinating than they are already. Chutes Too Narrow--whether one finds it more or less appealing than Oh, Inverted World--only begins to skim the surface of the Shins' talents, which appear to run very deep indeed.

The Shins will be appearing at the Bowery Ballroom on Saturday Oct. 25 at 12:15 a.m. as part of the CMJ Music Marathon.