the shins
Not Forgotten: The Shins – Chutes Too Narrow
From its brightly coloured, die-cut artwork, there’s something about Chutes Too Narrow that has always struck me as cartoon-like. I don’t mean that in a bad way, after all cartoons aren’t as tightly-bound by logical linear narratives as other forms of story telling, which in turn means that the suspension of belief is almost a …
Album Review: The Shins – The Worms Heart
For me the fascinating thing about The Worms Heart is not its concept, or even the music within, but it’s trying to figure out exactly when James Mercer came up with the wheeze of re-recording The Shins’ previous album, ensuring that each new version of every song had a tone which contrasted the original version …
Album Review: The Shins – Heartworms
The Shins confuse me. Heartworms is the fifth album by a band that was effectively a side project of a band which only released one album. In the past initial listens to their albums have left me disorientated, confused and of the opinion that they had ‘lost it’, only for the album of theirs that …
Not Forgotten – The Shins – Wincing the Night Away
It’s happened to me more times than I like to think – I discover a great band with a small but interesting discography, I’ve just missed them on tour, but great things are expected of their next album. So I patiently wait. And wait. Finally the album is released. It’s not quite as good as …
A Buyers Guide to The Shins
Initially an offshoot of Flake Music, The Shins were a solo side project for bandleader James Mercer to dabble with during the downtime of his main band. At some point in the mid 90s, Flake Music basically morphed into The Shins, and initially consisted of vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Mercer backed up by Flake Music’s Jesse …