Atlantica - 01.09.2004, Page 20

18 A T L A N T I C A
It must be said immediately – to get the
gushing out of the way. The Shins’ sec-
ond album, Chutes Too Narrow, is an
absolutely stunning collection of songs –
completely deserving of your repeated lis-
tening. Its wonderfully layered melodies
tickle your ears, and you’ll never tire of the
contrasts between singer James Mercer’s
dark lyrical guile and the sunshine har-
monies in the band’s early Eighties
anglophile pop.
After watching the band at this sum-
mer’s Roskilde festival in Denmark,
Atlantica met up with Marty Crandall and
Dave Hernandez who trade instruments
with each other throughout a Shins set.
They answer questions in the same co-
dependent manner, having spent a late
night out on the town with DJ Danger
Mouse in Copenhagen. While The Shins
are playing, Marty takes care of crowd
banter and set lists in addition to playing
multiple instruments. His easy going man-
ner gives the band a personal contact with
the audience that some might usually
expect from the singer in the group.
MARTY:
“(with a flourish) I direct. (pausing
and rethinking being dramatic given the
circumstances) I want it to go smoothly. I
write the sets and then talk up shit when
I’m up there. I like for the show to be enter-
taining. It doesn’t take much to just go,
“hey, I ate a hot dog.” I don’t know. Maybe
I get too carried away sometimes.”
His banter the previous night consisted of
his lack of appropriate footwear and his
pride in his new red trainers, which were
sure to be ruined in the shin-deep mud cov-
ering the festival grounds. In spite of the
inanity of these exchanges, it helped the
band cross that divide between stage and
audience. With songs like those on Chutes
Too Narrow, however, they didn’t have too
far to go. The crowd, many of whom having
come based on recommendations from
friend, were completely won over by the
show, which featured mainly songs from
the new album. Quite a few people sang
along with the hook lines from the album’s
best songs, “So Says I” or “Kissing the
Lipless”, even though the guy standing
next to me couldn’t quite hit the higher
notes. Afterwards, the crowd emptied the
festival record stores of all The Shins
records they could get their muddy hands
on.
The band has been on the receiving end of
a healthy buzz that started with the release
of their debut album, Oh Inverted World,
which was hailed as the second coming of
the Beach Boys when it came out in 2001.
The words “second coming” are all too
often a death sentence for a new band,
particularly when it comes to making a
second album and especially when they
get compared to a legendary pop band.
The Shins don’t seem to have been put off
by this. They’ve delivered an album that
Pitchfork (an online magazine devoted to
music reviews) referred to as their
“sophomore hump” to distinguish it from
the “sophomore slump”.
MARTY AND DAVE:
“(trading back and forth) There’s been
a buzz around the band for a while. Since
the second record came out it’s been pret-
ty buzzed. We’re buzzing. I’m buzzed right
now. It’s been a buzz that we’ve earned. I
think a lot of buzzes are undeserved, but
I’d like to think that we’ve worked for it.”
In fact, according to them, they’ve been
working so hard at it that they’ve hardly
had time to realize that they’re becoming
stars in their own right. With a tour to sup-
port the album that has been going on
since last year, the band says that they
haven’t really had time to assimilate
everything going on around them. But
they’re happy to be on the road, “sticking
little tacks all over their map”. They’ll be
hitting Iceland for the Airwaves festival in
October.
airmail
...
EVERY SO OFTEN, A BAND WILL COME ALONG THAT MANAGES TO WORK ITS WAY INTO YOUR LIFE DESPITE ANY
EFFORTS YOU MIGHT MAKE TO LOOK THE OTHER WAY. IN SEEMING INDIGNATION AT YOUR INATTENTION, IT
ATTACKS YOU FROM ALL ANGLES. RECOMMENDATIONS FROM FAMILY MEMBERS AND FRIENDS FOLLOW BOM-
BARDMENT FROM COOL RADIO SHOWS. PEOPLE PRACTICALLY GIVE YOU THEIR COPIES OF THE DISK TO GET YOU
TO LISTEN. THE SHINS, COMING TO ICELAND THIS OCTOBER, HAVE PRODUCED SUCH A DISK.
Is Beauty
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