Hailing from New Mexico via Portland, Oregon, THE SHINS have quietly eased themselves into contention via the old-fashioned undeground route of hard-gigging, word of mouth and - crucially - two ace albums, the second of which ("Chutes Too Narrow") has been setting hearts a fluttering round here.
And, with its' clean, immediate guitar melody, spangly little organ bits, flightily catchy "bum bum bum" backing vocals and James Mercer's attractively kooky wordplay ("walking the bridge and weakening cables"), "Fighting In A Sack" was always a winner as a potential single. Reminding you of The Lemonheads at their breeziest, it's a simple, unadorned stunner and begs repeat play on first date. What's more, it'll get it. Damn: even the bloody harmonica solo's irrepressible. It's all a breath of fresh air and no mistake.
Brilliantly, the B-sides are classy, too. First up is a cheerily faithful take of Marc Bolan's "Baby Boomerang", which is worked up with the daffy economy of the first T-Rex album (the eponymous one prior to "Electric Warrior" that everyone forgets) and Mercer clearly enjoys Marc's loopily mercurial lyrics, singing lines like: "Mince pie, dog eye, eagle on the wind, searching through the garbage for a friend" with real relish. Eee, the drugs you could get off banana skins in them days were much better, weren't they?
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To finish, a little Will Oldham/ Silver Jews-style folky darkness gets injected into the beer'n'bloodstream as Mercer joins Sam Beam of Iron & Wine onstage in New York for "New Slang" (actually a Mercer song), which is nonetheless instilled with very Beam-esque lyrics (e.g: "Dawn breaks like a bull through the hall") and - intriguingly - some unlikely Simon & Garfunkel-style harmonies. Rightly, it's greeted with a suitable fervency by an attentive audience and acts as further proof that James Mercer's muse is intelligent and diverse enough to grow apace in the future.
The Shins, then: purveyors of sweet, erudite guitar pop that's here to stay. Poeple, it can still be done.
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