The Shins’ newest album offers original lyrics
While ‘Wincing the Night Away’ won’t change your life, its musical versitality makes it worth a listen
By Jess Novak, staff writer
Posted on January 25, 2007

Few bands have faced such a challenge of impossible expectations as The Shins. After all, once Natalie Portman proclaimed they would “change your life” as her character Sam famously announced in the 2004 film “Garden State,” everyone seems to expect that The Shins’ newest album, Wincing the N­­ight Away, will…change their life. Obviously, this is a difficult expectation to meet.

While it may fall short of that goal, the album does not fall short in giving the listener track after track of thickly cryptic lyrics and a taste of all kinds of musical genres. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the album is the constant change in style.

As the album begins, the rising and falling tones sound like something you’d find on a Postal Service album. But soon The Shins transition into the up-beat, danceable “Australia,” reminiscent of Guster with its “la, la, las.” Later in the album you’d swear you were listening to an Incubus tune, a groove laid down by Sublime, something like a Beck song or a voice imitating Freddie Mercury of Queen. The versatility of the group to incorporate so many musical styles, genres and sounds is impressive, all the while maintaining its indie credibility with an ironically unique sound despite all the similarities.

Another pleasant surprise on the album is found within the mystery of lead singer, songwriter and guitarist James Mercer’s lyrics. While similar bands in the genre sing song after song with weeping guitars backing their emotion-drenched lyrics of heartache and anger, bitterness and regret, Mercer cleverly disguises any terribly depressing love-sick cries with brilliantly uninterpretable lyrics, at least on first listen.

Yet, upon more careful listening and rereading of even the most cryptic lines, the beauty of his words is even more obvious as they all seem to come together with meaning unrecognized upon first glance. Although there are probably millions of interpretations for lines such as, “Eviscerate your fragile frame / And spill it out on the ragged floor, / A thousand different versions of yourself,” part of the beauty is the ability of music to translate to each listener differently, and Mercer certainly utilizes the ability to produce lyrics which enable that phenomenon in each song.

However, two songs stand apart as more typical and generally understandable in terms of being lyrical stories, “Turn on Me” and “Girl Sailor.” Both make specific mention of a girl and various problems faced because of her. As in “Turn on Me,” the typical problem of control and change in direction is made clear with the lines, “’Cause you had to know that I was fond of you, / Though I knew you masked your disdain / I can see the change was just too hard for us, / You always had to hold the reigns / But where I’m headed you just don’t know the way.” “Girl Sailor” follows in a similar vein of sadness and release with lines like, “So settle this once and for all / The light no longer shows the cracks around my door, / And I have no lantern to light your way home tonight.”

Overall, Wincing the Night Away is satisfying. Though it lacks any real life-changing qualities and does not hold any specifically stand-out tracks, it delivers what many bands fall short of: musical versatility, intelligent and anything-but-typical lyrics, and an overall catchy album. Don’t expect too much, but don’t expect to be disappointed.