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
A humble beginning, with that one song that could change your life.
Key tracks: "Caring Is Creepy", "New Slang", "Girl on the Wing"
The Shins' debut comes heavy with expectations. It's not because of the infamous and over-referenced (guilty, natch!) "change your life" line from Garden State - I don't believe anyone takes that bit with any gravitas anymore and it's long since established itself as a running joke that's cruelly if well-intendedly forever levied against Oh, Inverted World and The Shins in general. It's "New Slang" that's the big weight. It's one of the hallowed group of songs with the power to force you to sit down and pay attention from the first instance. The emotional weight dripping from James Mercer's weary voice, the ridiculously simple but cunningly brilliant "ooh-ooh-ooh" hook, the gorgeous arrangement that seems like a straightforward campfire song at first but eventually reveals itself to host a multitude of depth and tiny but important details, the sheer gravitas of it for such a straightforward song - it's a brilliant, brilliant song. Yet it's a humble and unassuming song, but that's perhaps its most important strength - it resonates like a personal hidden treasure you've happened to come across and it could be special to you and you alone.
There is absolutely nothing on Oh, Inverted World that comes even close to "New Slang" and the song is its biggest curse: a legitimate classic weighing down the rest of its parent album that didn't have the luck to be just as majestic. Good news is that the sooner that thought is processed and dealt with, the sooner you come to realise the album's other strengths, even if it takes a long while like for the undersigned. They're just completely different ones.
Humble and unassuming describes Oh, Inverted World accurately enough as a whole. It's a literal bedroom recording, with most of it having been written and recorded in Mercer's own home before any hope of it seeing a true light of day was in anyone's minds. They're short, unassuming pop songs: warm, lithe melodies with songwriting where the backbone lies in straightforward singer/songwriter elements. That alone makes it a novelty within The Shins' discography. Mercer can be a genius within his genre when it comes to brilliantly clever yet still blindingly direct melodies, and Oh, Inverted World is the one album where that factor hasn't had the chance yet to become The Shins' de facto modus operandi. Each album since this has dressed those melodies up in grand, punchy arrangements like a bloodhungry indie pop barbarian - some very successfully and some less so. Oh, Inverted World plays with smaller stakes, if at any: it's homely and homey.
The one little flourish that Oh, Inverted World does allow itself is some rather tasteful keyboard work. They're not extravagant parts either, but they bring a change to a lot of the album's general sound world and the songs that hold them up the clearest generally end up being the album's best. "Caring Is Creepy" - as close to a big and explosive "rocker" as this album gets - highlights its love-at-first-sight hooks with vintage organs, the playfully ascending and descending keyboard riff of "Girl on a Wing" ends up stealing the show particularly as the song slows its pace from its cold open, and the brightly parading synths of "One by One All Day" practically make the song (as does the cunningly punctuating xylophone referenced in the song's lyrics), as enjoyable as its twee rollicking generally is. The keyboards overall lend kind of dreaminess all over the album that adds to its charms, and often turn out to be the main part that strikes a fancy in their respective songs.
There's one more ace to the album's sleeve and that's the closing track "The Past and Pending", which is more or less "New Slang" Part 2, just a little dreamier; it's a lovely way to close the album as its refrain seems to run forever and you want to cling onto it for as long as you can. The remaining tracks are fine even if not as strong. They contribute to the overall atmosphere of the album and there's frequent reminders of Mercer's cunning tricks (the dialogue-like vocal runs of "Know Your Onion!" for example), but there's a clear gap running between them and what's already mentioned. It's a classic case of the sum being better than the parts. the stronger set carrying the weight while what's in-between accentuate the overall feel. With only half an hour in length, even the lesser cuts never overstay their welcome and stay novel.
I tend to prefer The Shins when Mercer's a bit more vibrant in his expression, but Oh, Inverted World has more to it than its humble outlook and the endless weight of its Big Song offer at first glance. It's the cosiest Shins album, a more intimate wrapping for Mercer's tricks, and that's proven to be aspect that lures me in. It'd be great if everything was as strong as "Caring Is Creepy" or especially "New Slang", but this is one case where it's hard to hold the album against itself given how well the whole ultimately works.
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