“James Mercer & co. aim to deflect the inevitable Brafflash by crafting a more texturally diverse record than their outstanding, if uncomplicated, previous outings.”
“The Shins’ 2001 Oh, Inverted World was a siren song from a familiar type: "pimpled and angry" outsider saved by music, but still cut off from the love he seeks by unkind women and cruel fate. In 2003, Chutes Too Narrow topped two pained kiss-off songs with four fatalistic philosophical ones, then shifted into a […]”
