CD Odyssey Disc 496: The Shins

It is a windy, blustery day, but apart from a chill in the air, it is actually kind of nice.  I like it windy, and I don’t even mind the rain, but I have a hard time with both of them at the same time.  If I can’t use an umbrella, it means I have to use ear-buds instead of my nice headphones.  The headphones are a bit hipster, but I love them, and they give a nice warm sound to the music that bass-driven ear-buds never do.  Kudos to Sheila for buying them for me!

Luckily this morning’s walk was just rain, and this afternoon’s was just wind, so I got to use them both ways.

Disc 496 is… Chutes Too Narrow

Artist: The Shins

Year of Release: 2003

What’s up with the Cover?  In the middle of the oughts, record companies and artists alike were still valiantly trying to keep people from turning to downloads over albums.  Beck did a cover which you could decorate yourself with “The Information” and even the Shins follow up album, “Wincing the Night Away” has stickers.

“Chutes Too Narrow” is a three dimensional fold, where different portions are cut away to create a three dimensional effect.  I thought about folding it out and taking another picture, but it looks like it was drawn by someone in Grade Two.

How I Came To Know It:  As I’ve noted on prior Shins’ reviews, Sheila and I were watching “Saturday Night Live” and we saw the Shins come on to promote this album.  We loved it and went out and bought this album shortly thereafter, so this is the album that launched our interest in the band.

How It Stacks Up:  We have four Shins albums, which I think is all of them.  “Chutes Too Narrow” is excellent, but I have to put it behind the masterpiece that is “Wincing the Night Away,” and so it fall second.

As this is the last Shins album for review in the collection, tradition dictates a quick recap of how they stacked up: 

1. Winging the Night Away: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 366)
2. Chutes Too Narrow:  4 stars (reviewed right here)
3. Port of Morrow: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 442)
4. Oh, Inverted World: 2 stars (reviewed at Disc 22).

Rating:  4 stars.

If you live with someone, there will always be albums that your partner or room-mate will play a lot.  Doing chores?  They’ll play a particular album.  Playing games?  Same album appeals to them.  Painting a room?  You guessed it – same album again.  This can be a perilous situation if the album isn’t to your liking.

“Chutes Too Narrow” is one of those ‘play it all the time’ albums for Sheila.  Luckily for me, I also love it.  Like my last review for KISS’ “Love Gun,” this is a tight little record, with just ten tracks and coming in at only thirty-three minutes.  I wouldn’t say “Chutes Too Narrow” leaves me wanting more, but it definitely leaves me satisfied.

The Shins make pop music (don’t let this whole fad for the word ‘indie’ fool you).  They make excellent pop music though, unlike most of the tripe that gets radio play.  I wouldn’t know if the Shins get radio play, since I never listen to the radio, but I hope they do – they certainly deserve it.

Their particular brand of pop puts songs together that embrace the genre’s very traditional and basic music constructions but then orchestrate the various instruments in novel ways.  The result is more about the whole sound, rather than any individual virtuosity.

If there is any standout, it is singer James Mercer, who is also the songwriter and general inspiration for the band (and the only surviving member, which is a bit weird).  Mercer has that modern indie-style voice which is high and tiny like a sixties teen idol, but with an added quaver that makes it feel more vulnerable and heartfelt.  Many of these songs would seem maudlin if it weren’t for Mercer’s delivery making you feel it so deeply.

Everyone else plays well, but the music is mostly rhythmic in nature, without solos or other attention being drawn to them.  Sometimes I miss the dynamics of solo virtuosity in indie music, but “Chutes Too Narrow” does a good job of establishing a thoughtful introspective mood.  It draws you toward it in a trance-like way that would make a squealing guitar solo or bridge just seem oddly out of place or jarring.

As a result, I’m sometimes lulled into the music so far that I don’t pay attention to what the band is singing about.  This is a shame, because unlike their preceding album (“Oh, Inverted World”) this record has Mercer combining the simple rhythmic melodies with some genuinely thoughtful lines.

My favourite song on the album, lyrically and musically, is “Pink Bullets” a song about a failed relationship told in part through the imagery of two kites entangled with each other:

“Cool of a temperate breeze

From dark skies to wet grass

We fell in a field it seems

A thousand summers passed

When our kite lines first crossed

We tied them into knots

To finally fly apart we had to cut them off.”

It is the tale of a relationship where the very things that hold it together prevent the participants from moving forward.  It is deeply depressing, but damned evocative.  Once the tragedy of the situation is understood, and the realization is made that it must end, things turn even worse, as love shifts to self-loathing:

“Since then it’s been a book you read in reverse

You understand less as the pages turn

Or a movie so crass

And awkwardly cast

Even I could be the star.”

There are other great moments on the album, most of which come on the back half of the album which is more introspective and interesting to me.  Notably “Gone For Good,” is another brilliant breakup song filled with the same vastness of regret and relationship disaster.

One minor gripe is that the songs are named things that are overly obscure, making it hard to remember the titles of the ones you like.  Just name it something that makes sense, James!

This album has come dangerously close to overplayed for me, but it is a testament to its excellence that even as I think to myself, that same album again” I still feel excited to hear it yet again.

Best tracks:  Young Pilgrim, Saint Simon, Pink Bullets, Gone For Good, Those To Come.