Hailing from Albuquerque, New Mexico and now largely based in Portland, Oregon, THE SHINS are both the epitome of how the DIY approach can still bear fruit (with their debut album, "Oh, Inverted World" selling 150,000 copies Stateside largely by word of mouth) and a further example of the positive change in Sub Pop's new roster.
Indeed, while Ontario's The Constantines' recent "Shine A Light" served notice that grunge throwbacks were finally a thing of the past round at Sub Pop's HQ, The Shins' excellent second album "Chutes Too Narrow" strays even closer to classic, underground US pop, with James Mercer's fine, idiosyncratic 3-minute songs, the band's economic, but descriptive playing and Phil Ek's live-sounding, close-miked production ensuring that at barely 30 minutes, the record never oustays its' welcome.
And, although Mercer and his cohorts adopt an eclectic attitude to their songs, pop is very much the order of the day round here. Slightly creepy opener "Kissing The Lipless" is a case in point, with chiming chords buoyed up by Peter Hook-style high end bass runs and the band taking flight when Mercer mutters weird invocations like "Secretly, I want you buried in the yard." Erk!
Still, the euphoria contained within songs like the frenetic, boggle-eyed pop of "Fighting In A Sack" and "Turn A Square" (which features a zig-zagging riff that sounds like the inverse of Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman") are more than enough to convince you Mercer's hardly the Fred West of alt.rock, and when you add these to the catchy jangleathon of recent single "So Says I" and the soaring keyboards lifting "Mine's Not A High Horse", the idea of a quiet classic begins to sound realistic.
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Besides, even when the band try something a little more ambitious they're not found wanting, as "Saint Simon" demonstrates. Initially it suggests kooked-out pop of an updated Jonathan Richman variety, but continues on to drape itself in an exciting, semi-orchestral cloak and take on a ream of melodic twists before it hits the fade. Lovely, as are the spare, acoustic foray "Young Pilgrims", the morning-after epilogue "Those To Come" and the Americana-imbibing "Gone For Good", where the loping beat and surrealistic lyric recall Clem Snide.
The Shins, then, are a relentlessly intriguing and deceptively simple quartet who are creating something resonant out of the most tried and tested tricks. If you think that can't still be done, I'd urge you to force yourself down "Chutes Too Narrow": a place where eloquent guitar pop doesn't have to try to fit in.
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