Rainy Day Music #10: "Wincing The Night Away"
April 21, 2014
Last week’s Rainy Day Album was an album of relentless, visceral sorrow — an opportunity to use a rainy day to purge the darkest emotions in your nature. This week’s is the opposite, a light and carefree album to make the most of your time inside: the Shins’ Wincing The Night Away. Thanks to Clare Teeling, WVAU alumna and buddy, for this pick.
The Shins changed everybody’s lives when a mention by Natalie Portman and soundtrack spots for “Caring Is Creepy” and “New Slang” in Zach Braff’s 2004 film Garden State changed theirs, turning them from a cute secret crush of a band to a poster child of indie culture. At that point they had released two incredible albums, 2001’s Oh, Inverted World and 2003’s Chutes Too Narrow, both brimming with a tight, 60s-influenced sound and frontman James Mercer’s top-notch melodies.
Released in 2007, Wincing The Night Away was the band’s first album following their Garden State shout out. It is, as expected, a move to cater to the band’s broader audience. It is slicker than their previous works; while the Shins have never exactly been abrasive, Wincing takes whatever edges there were and smoothens them. Wincing also possesses a much bigger, more produced sound; on this album, the Shins sound like far more than just four dudes in a room playing songs. Keyboard layers here, backing vocals there, string sections and auxiliary percussion and larger spaces enter the Shins’ sound on Wincing.
None of that is to disparage the album, however, because these new dressings suit the set of songs it holds quite nicely. These songs are far simpler than those on previous albums. While melodies on hits like “Caring Is Creepy” or “Kissing The Lipless” seemed to cram as many musical notes in as possible, the tunes here are less acrobatic, and more intensively catchy.
The first side of the album (excluding the fragment “Pam BerryÛ) is a big move, firmly encamping the Shins on the “pop” side of indie pop. Opener “Sleeping Lessons,” one of the band’s best songs, grows from an atmospheric keyboard arpeggio into a driving bounce, feeling epic in 4 minutes. “Australia” and “Phantom Limb” move into the poppiest territory, with soaring melodies so sweet they’re sickly. “Sea Legs” is a novelty for the Shins, and anticipates Mercer’s imminent Broken Bells project with a sample-like drum pulse and funky guitar and synth leads in the coda.
The second side is more varied emotionally. It begins with the soothing lullaby of “Red Rabbits” and then bites into another piece of deliriously sweet pop candy with “Turn On Me,” possibly the cutesiest moment here: “you had to know that I was fond of you/fond of Y.O.U.” goes the chorus. The next pair of songs are a bit darker, tapping into the eerie energy of some earlier songs. “Black Wave” is an ominous acoustic mantra, and “Split Needles” finds the Shins sounding the most like Radiohead that they ever did, with keening mellotron samples over a sinister guitar line. After that it’s back to the norm, with the surfy/’60s pop of “Girl Sailor” and meditative closer “A Comet Appears.Û
For all of the lightness and lightheartedness of the tunes here, we must remember that this is the Shins we’re talking about, and their lyrics tend to be sneakily darker than their delivery would suggest. James Mercer’s lyrics are at a high point on Wincing, painting a different picture of a different story on each song. But if you listen closely, the album seems to follow a theme of self-loathing as the result of personal weakness and a tarnished romantic history. Dark one-liners begin to emerge from the verbose verses.
Some examples: the happy-sounding “Australia” ends with “so give me your hand and let’s jump out the window,” and “Turn On Me” subverts the “fond of you” chorus with a line that goes “if you’d only seen yourself hating meÛ. “Phantom Limb” wonders why “there’s no connectionÛ. And the final line on the album, from “A Comet Appears,” sums up what seems to be the theme here: “there is a numbness in your heart and it’s growingÛ.
This is the duality of Wincing: while it is indeed poppier and more accessible musically than their previous albums, its lyrics are just as impenetrable, if not more. But regardless of the poetic darkness of Mercer’s lines, the warmth and liveliness of the tunes and arrangements on Wincing keep it an enjoyable and carefree listen.
When I asked Clare why she had chosen this album for a rainy day (especially instead of the litany of sad indie rock albums that she loves), she responded that “rain is not sad!” and that Wincing would serve as a good pick-me-up. I’m so glad we can have this perspective on our Rainy Day Music. If Hospice or Grape Blueprints Pour Spinach Olive Grape have left you devastated but it’s still raining out, throw on Wincing The Night Away, snuggle up and realize that there is as much reward in happy-sounding music as in sad-sounding music. It may be raining out there but you’ll feel sunny when you put this one on.
