Nothing Holds a Roman Candle To. . .

Earlier this year a couple very trusted buddies demanded that I see the movie Garden State. It was a very nice, if not excellent, movie. And key to its contemplative tone was the music. So, I bought (oh alright, "illegally downloaded") the soundtrack. After a while, two songs by The Shins really got into my skin, so I bought (. . . see infra) their album Chutes Too Narrow.

Since then, I haven't listened to much else.

Fantastic. Every time I boil it down into a few favorite songs, I give another listen to a few others . . . and, like all great albums (Kid A comes immediately to mind), the more you listen, the better they get. These are just effing beautiful melodic songs. And strange. Who drops a quick line like "tell Sir Thomas More we've got another failed attempt" into the bridge of a pop song? And it works.

I can typically explain my impression of any new group by combining two or three other artists (i.e. The White Stripes = Violent Femmes plus Nirvana minus bass guitar and talent). But The Shins are pretty damn unique. When I first heard New Slang (on Garden State and Oh! Inverted World), I thought this was some Irish band - like that one group that Sting did some songs with. What the eff were they called? The Commandoes or something? Oh yeah - The Cheiftans. Anyway, it had that comfortable sort of drunk-in-a-pub-in-Dublin-by-a-fireplace sound. Not even close - they're from Albequerque.

But each song carries its own style. The opening track on Chutes, Kissing the Lipless, could be Jane's Addiction. And I mean Jane's Addiction at their best. Saint Simon could be . . . eff, I don't know . . Queen? I'll tell you, halfway through that song, when it shifts keys (oh, you'll know it when you hear it) it's the prettiest thing I've heard since . . . well, for some reason I remember being in junior high and hearing the opening notes in Slash's bitchin Sweet Child of Mine solo. Yeah, good times. Where do we go... where do we go now. But, I digest . . .

Anyway, get this disk and listen to it all the way through six times. After the sixth time, you'll find yourself shirtless on the street wildly screaming these songs at strangers with pure animal joy.