The Shins - Oh, Inverted World (2001)



Tracklisting

1. Caring is Creepy
2. One by One All Day
3. Weird Divide
4. Know Your Onion!
5. Girl Inform Me
6. New Slang
7. The Celibate Life
8. Girl on the Wing
9. Your Algebra
10. Pressed in a Book
11. The Past and Pending

This album is good. Ridiculously good. I don't know how else to say it. This is just a good album. 11 tracks, 11 home runs. This is another album that I love every track on it. This is easily my favorite album in this millenium. James Mercer's voice just matches the music here so well. Opening up with "Caring is Creepy" is amazing, I have not stopped listening to this song since I removed the shrink-wrapping. But even better, "New Slang" is a song that is an elite group. This is one of the finest songs recorded in the past 15 years. Yeah, it's that good. The Shins produce this almost dream-like music, psychadelic but not too much, they always stay well grounded. Songs like "New Slang" and "Weird Divide" show their folk roots. To be honest, I didn't know that sounds like this could be made by dudes from Alburquerque.

"New Slang" seems to be a song about sadness and remorse. With lyrics like "I was happier then, with no mindset" and "And my head's to the wall, and I'm lonely", it kind of sets the mood. This song has a RIDICULOUS melody, for being a somber song, it has quite a catchy melody.

"Girl Inform Me" is a song straight out of the 60's. This reminds me of a Beach Boys song or something. Amazing production on this one, you'll fall in love with it.

"Caring is Creepy" to me portrays a sense of uselessness and numbness. The lyrics "Building nothing, laying bricks" is basically saying, I'm trying but nothing is being accomplished. Just my interpretation.

All in all, The Shins crafted a masterpiece here, a work of art. If you don't believe me please just buy it for "New Slang", as Natalie Portman says in Garden State, the song will change your life.