The Shins Live in London - As Reported in The Independent today


The Shins may be the definition of college-rock, with their undisguised intelligence and scholarly knowledge of pop at the heart of their appeal. But, somewhere in the maze of James Mercer's mind, there is also real sympathy for outsiders. His life as he wrote Wincing the Night Away, living next to a crack-house and being persecuted by neighbours, could have justified an alienated screed. Instead, these experiences have been sunk into the foundations of complex pop constructions: this modest man's version of transcendence.

Your attention is constantly caught by cunning corners in songs that are restlessly busy. It is like trying to take in ornate pieces of architecture. The unsatisfied ambition of pop scholars is constantly at work, making drummer Jesse Sandoval add softly, absently slapped beats to the surging melody of "Phantom Limb", and building "Girl Sailor" on the descending bass of "Waterloo Sunset". "Comet Appears" is a pensive, lost, slow honkytonk strum; "Caring is Creepy" transistor radio tinny. If anyone has swallowed the pop dictionary, it's The Shins. But it's symptomatic of a deeper sensibility that when the Natalie Portman-adored "New Slang" is finally played, it proves to be so sad and odd. Book-ended by Mercer's echoing Appalachian yodels, with a languid Rickenbacker solo at its heart, it is a tired, beaten-down ballad; the sort of song that might well nag at you, and change a tiny slice of your life.

The Shins aren't generally about deep, wild feeling, however. The drawling punk aggression of a Jonathan Richman cover near the close contrasts with their own tributes to pop's sunnier powers. They are a crucial step removed from that music's redemptive core. But their impressions of it are heartfelt.