It’s been a while since The Shins released Wincing the Night Away. I got the album right when it came out but I wanted to really spend some time listening to it before giving my opinion. As you can see from my Last.fm, I really have been listening to the album almost exclusively for the past few weeks and I can safely say that it’s awesome!
Their first album, Oh, Inverted World, was great but I feel like it was overrated because of Garden State’s focus on it. I know that this is a pretty popular opinion but I must agree in hindsight. After hearing how amazing James Russell Mercer’s voice turned out to be on Chutes Too Narrow, I feel like Oh, Inverted World didn’t do him justice. I suppose it could also be viewed as a growing experience.
Wincing the Night Away has a lot of the same sound that everyone’s grown to love with The Shins but they’ve added a lot as well. For instance, they’ve kind of taken a step back to their Oh, Inverted World sound with the not-so-aggressive melodies but, in a way, its more refined than they’ve ever sounded before. Also, with songs like Red Rabbits, The Shins have brought about a copmletely new sound that they’ve never really explored before. At least they have not explored the voice-sound combination and I think it turned out really well.
The album as a whole is lyrically and musically a great achievement. I have a big problem with albums that don’t have a common theme and sound but Wincing the Night Away has no lack of theme or coherence in any way. I still like Chutes too Narrow but I would most definately recommend Wincing the Night Away to Shins and non-Shins fans alike.
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