crypticcradle's Full Review: Oh, Inverted World by The Shins
If this world was one big, grotesquely, absurdly shaped building, would the general, closed off, music-loving public try to "fix" it? Would they straighten the windows and level the shelves? Would they make perfect rectangles out of the perfectly imperfect trapezoids that make the floors? Is music even that important to be put in this context? I mean, in a way, don't we already live in a malformed society that we all seem to accept to the point we realize it needs to change? Questions.
Questions that you are allowed to draw your own conclusions to. But music would not be what it is without those guys who will go into that Samuel Beckett palace we call the world and not bend their neck to look out the window which sits at an "awkward" angle. Artists who are just _artists_. Those who reflect _us_. Who seem like they just don't care how you pigeonhole them 'cause you're going to do it anyway. In this strange way, The Shins fit. In 2001 they came into this, now much lauded, alternative rock movement of pop and played endgame with it until it collapsed. After all, there is no intrigue without a bit of destruction.
The levels of their debut, "Oh, Inverted World", are scattered. On the surface you have these guys - Marty Crandall, Neal Langford, Jesse Sandoval, and singer/songwriter James Mercer - jamming away these dandy little pop tunes. It feels good; upbeat; fun times, indeed. It's misleading. Once you dig into Mercer's lyrics, you realize this isn't some one-dimensional, happy-go-lucky 'n sprinkle-a-little-angst, pop album...
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"'Cause you know as soon as we breathe we scrutinize
unknown quotients, you must be using potions
How else could you tie my head to the sky?
This new convection has left no wondering why
I can't concern myself with ordinary tripe"
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...nope, you are dealing with no ordinary band, folks. This Albuquerque, New Mexico quartet makes music to toy with your spirit like an underdog on a swingset. But that Mercer, with his - at times morose, at times strangely joyous - songwriting also embeds weird little seeds in your head that makes your brain grow intertwining branches. Then they bust through your metallic ceiling and into the velvet floor of your neighbors above! Consider yourself planted in this perfect little (inverted) world. It makes sense when the sense-pressers have already gone out of order. Conform no longer.
But, as a pop/rock group, The Shins do show some "sensibilities" in this artistic direction. Actually, if you paid no attention to the lyrics at all, you'd have no clue that this wasn't just some New Pornographers album. A song like the single, Know Your Onion, an upbeat, lo-fi jaunt through suburban life doesn't feel any further outside the box than a happy meal. Then you hear, "when every other part of life seemed locked behind shutters. I knew what worthless dregs we all are then." Okay, the songwriting isn't _all_ that melancholy but, especially since the backdrop is predominantly "happy", it surely juxtaposes the instruments with biting outlook and philosophy. That's what makes the music so daring to be great and, in turn, a product of greatness.
Anyhow, if you and I have anything in common, any album that opens up with a song possessing the line, "far above our heads are the icy heights that contain all reason," has to be worthwhile. That's the most contemplative tone taken in the lead-off Caring is Creepy, a slippery song with so much atmospheric keyboard work, it's damn near an obtuse dreamland. Funny how The Shins chose to kick-off their debut with easily their most whirly, trip-to-nowhere-but-somewhere song. But it works. Probably because they follow that up with the one of the most low-key songs they have. Sort of reminds you of how Wilco opened "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" up with the whimsical "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" and then followed that up with the barely-breathing (but still kicking) "Kamera". Just a great effect. "Oh, Inverted World"'s second joint, One by One All Day is more of a train ride into happy oblivion where the grass is always lush green and the music is always floating in your psyche. It tugs on the beauty of innocence and youth in original contexts. But, in case you couldn't tell, pretty much everything here is taken in contexts which are nothing if not awash with wit and ingenuity.
That unique perspective led to The Shins single greatest work of genius, the cockeyed look at loneliness that is New Slang. The acoustic beauty - the raw, refreshing feeling - is pretty hard to spell out for you. Just believe it's there. Mercer sings until all of the dead leaves have fallen off the trees in autumn about the struggle of newfound aloneness. Instead of your average, "oh baby I miss you; please love me," Mercer simply pleads to his ex, "turn me back into the pet I was when we met. I was happier then with no mind-set." Pondering the joy of being reunited with the feeling of ideal love, Mercer hits his wall at the end with, "I'm looking in on the good life I might be doomed never to find. Without a trust or flaming fields, am I too dumb to refine?" This ain't no pity party, though. In fact, it's one of the best-feeling songs you could ever hear. Indeed, there is a peaceful flowing stream in the somber and solemn.
After you explain all you can explain about "Oh, Inverted World", there's little left to do but push the play button and let it run its dreams through you for 33-and-change. After you've pinned it down, you will simply get lost in it and that's what music is supposed to make you do. You'll romp around to the power-noted Girl on the Wing, with its reverberating harmonica-like keyboard swirls and lick-tastic guitar free-for-all. You'll scream passionately with Mercer, about us silly people, on the poppin' rock party that is Pressed in a Book. "People never change, they just talk, and make plans in the dark, and make haste with ideas that can't help but creep good people out." And finally, you'll tucker out and raise a fat Bic lighter up for the tender The Past and Pending. Thick with a finale including the piano and french horn, The Shins give you 5 minutes and 22 seconds of reasons why you should remember them and their inverted little world.
So, this heavenly body really _is_ a surreal and decrepit lodge that houses all of us in our peculiar little dwellings. Some of us try to make sense ot it; some of us try to adjust it. Some of us just laugh and love it as if it were a part of us. Those are the type of people who need to hear "Oh, Inverted World" by The Shins. It's yet another clear-water reflection of us, therefore immortal.
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"Before we take this ride and let it slide
into the cracks where fall and winter collide
I surrender all my gall in a song of modern love
Remember you're the one who summoned me above any other kind"
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The Shins
"Oh, Inverted World"
Sub Pop: 2001
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11 Tracks
33 mins. & 26 secs.
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For more information about Cryptic Cradle and his reviews, please click here.
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Written by Cryptic Cradle for Spike-A-Delic Productions.
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