The Shins - Heartworms (2017)

1) Name for You; 2) Painting a Hole; 3) Cherry Hearts; 4) Fantasy Island; 5) Mildenhall; 6) Rubber Ballz; 7) Half a Million; 8) Dead Alive; 9) Heartworms; 10) So Now What; 11) The Fear

Charmingly erratic and surprisingly consistent return, but also lacking in the sort of highlights you'd rave about whenever Mercer's got a new album out.

Key tracks: "Painting a Hole", "Dead Alive", "So Now What"

Port of Morrow saw James Mercer officially turn The Shins into a fully autocratic venture for his own whims, but it's the Shins album with the least of Mercer's own personality and that's in good part thanks to the radio-friendly big name production. Heartworms, then, sounds closer to what Mercer perhaps intended all along, tying his musical language inseparably together with his quirks and influences. It's self-produced, a whole lot more idiosyncratic than Port of Morrow and Mercer's pulled together a strictly limited number of collaborators to act as a band of sorts for when he needs something to sound like a group effort instead of pure studio craftsmanship. Its inspiration also stems from the whole spectrum of James' singer/songwriter past, The Shins' melodic jangles, his electronically oriented Broken Bells side project and the 1980s indie acts that he worships, and it splices them all together into a genuinely somewhat weird concoction; that at-first uncharacteristic cover art makes perfect sense in context because there's that streak of unpredictable surreality to Mercer's operations here.

I honestly have a lot of admiration for Heartworms conceptually and it's especially clear why if you spend a good time with Port of Morrow and then this album right afterwards: there's simply so much more excitement to what Mercer is doing here and the album is full of surprise. The main thing is that it, as in a blink of an eye Mercer can move from his trademark stylistics with e.g. the reliably Shins-like singalong ditty "Name for You" and the cosy acoustic daydreaming of "Mildenhall", to something as neurotic and twitchy as "Painting a Hole" or the string-swept resignment of "The Fear". There's a constant momentum to Heartworms that's the result of it being a jumble of influences and ideas which  form a sum that makes a strange logic out of its disparate strands. It's the most varied album released under The Shins moniker so far

What's also apparent if you come into this directly after Port of Morrow is how Heartworms lacks a real stone cold classic or two, when even Port of Morrow had its title track and "The Rifle's Spiral" which kept you coming back to the album and contribute to why I do actually like that album to some extent despite how harsh I'm towards it here. Heartworms is arguably one of the most interesting Shins albums, but it's not got its own killer hit that Mercer has always managed to sneak into any album he's released. The closest we get is "Dead Alive", a throwback to the early Shins sound laced with a barking mad Halloween spookiness twist which works incredibly well - but as fun as it is it's not the kind of first place trophy song that becomes synonymous with the Mercer project it's associated with and draws you back in. I like plenty of songs on Heartworms - "Mildenhall" is quaintly heartwarming in its earnest and happily cheesy nostalgia, "So Now What" stretches the kind of lush centrepiece swoon moment most songs save for the finale into a full song length and it strikes a particular level of beautiful as it does so, and both "Painting a Hole" and "Half a Million" are great examples of the more hyperactive mad genius concoctions Mercer is comfortable cooking under the reimagined Shins. None of them are songs you'd rave about to anyone who cares to listen though. There's no "New Slang", no "Mine's Not a High Horse", no "The High Road" that you'd truly fall in love with and which would pull you into the album as a whole even when the rest doesn't match it, and while that might perhaps be a high ask it's something that Mercer has always been reliably solid with otherwise. Heartworms' curse is that while it's consistent, it also doesn't plateau particularly high. And then on the other hand, it houses a couple songs that are actual stinkers: the bubblegum float of "Fantasy Island" with its irritatingly coy chorus and the wishywashy indie-pop-by-numbers "Rubber Ballz" are probably the worst two songs in The Shins' back catalogue so far, going beyond plain forgettable and actually being a little annoying.

Heartworms is a decent album but it's the worst kind of decent album: one with the potential to be great. A lot of it is delightfully quirky and it marries well with the more conventionally Mercer-like songs, but it's all a step or two away from being something truly great, something that would stick around. During the Heartworms sessions Mercer had the bonkers idea of doing an alternative version of each and every song, one as the songs were 'intended' to be (i.e. the ones here) and another where he went completely wild and which he would later release as the companion album The Worm's Heart. The two are inseparably linked as much as I'd like to judge them on their own, and while Heartworms is the more cohesive and sensible of the two, some of the ideas from the alternative takes could have taken these songs to the next level when transported over and converted into the type of vision James had here. So not only is it an album with potential but you can practically touch that potential. But that's all could've would've should've,  and the reality is that Heartworms is another appealing yet flawed album into The Shins canon - though at least you can give Mercer credit that he always lets you down in a different way, at least.

Rating: 6/10

R.E.M. - R.E.M. at the BBC (2018)

CD1: Live Sessions 1) World Leader Pretend (Into the Night 1991); 2) Fretless (Into the Night 1991); 3) Half a World Away (Into the Night 1991); 4) Radio Song (Into the Night 1991); 5) Losing My Religion (Into the Night 1991); 6) Love Is All Around (Into the Night 1991); 7) Walk Unafraid (John Peel Session 1998); 8) Daysleeper (John Peel Session 1998); 9) Lotus (John Peel Session 1998); 10) At My Most Beautiful (John Peel Session 1998); 11) Bad Day (Mark and Lard 2003); 12) Orange Crush (Mark and Lard 2003); 13) Man on the Moon (Drivetime 2003); 14) Imitation of Life (Drivetime 2003); 15) Supernatural Superserious (Radio 1 Live Lounge 2008); 16) Munich (Radio 1 Live Lounge 2008)
CD2: John Peel Session (1998): 1) Introduction; 2) Losing My Religion; 3) New Test Leper; 4) Lotus; 5) Parakeet; 6) Electrolite; 7) Perfect Circle; 8) The Apologist; 9) Band Introductions; 10) Daysleeper; 11) Country Feedback; 12) At My Most Beautiful; 13) Walk Unafraid; 14) Man on the Moon
CD3: Rock City (1984): 1) Second Guessing; 2) Hyena; 3) Talk About the Passion; 4) West of the Fields; 5) (Don't Go Back To) Rockville; 6) Auctioneer (Another Engine); 7) So. Central Rain; 8) Old Man Kensey; 9) Gardening at Night; 10) 9-9/Hey Diddle Diddle/Feeling Gravity's Pull; 11) Windout; 12) Driver 8; 13) Pretty Persuasion; 14) Radio Free Europe; 15) Wendell Gee; 16) Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars)
CD4: The National Bowl (1995): 1) What's the Frequency, Kenneth?; 2) Crush With Eyeliner; 3) Drive; 4) Turn You Inside-Out; 5) Try Not to Breathe; 6) I Took Your Name; 7) Undertow; 8) Bang and Blame; 9) I Don't Sleep, I Dream; 10) Strange Currencies; 11) Revolution; 12) Tongue
CD5: The National Bowl (1995): 1) Man on the Moon; 2) Country Feedback; 3) Half a World Away; 4) Losing My Religion; 5) Pop Song 89; 6) Finest Worksong; 7) Get Up; 8) Star 69; 9) Let Me In; 10) Everybody Hurts; 11) Fall on Me; 12) Departure; 13) It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
CD6: Glastonbury (1999): 1) Lotus; 2) What's the Frequency, Kenneth?; 3) So Fast, So Numb; 4) The Apologist; 5) Fall on Me; 6) Daysleeper; 7) The Wake-Up Bomb; 8) The One I Love; 9) Sweetness Follows; 10) At My Most Beautiful
CD7: Glastonbury (1999): 1) Losing My Religion; 2) Everybody Hurts; 3) Walk Unafraid; 4) Star 69; 5) Finest Worksong; 6) Man on the Moon; 7) Why Not Smile; 8) Crush with Eyeliner; 9) Tongue; 10) Cuyahoga; 11) It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
CD8: St. James' Church (2004): 1) Intro; 2) So Fast, So Numb; 3) Boy in the Well; 4) I Wanted to Be Wrong; 5) E-Bow the Letter (with Thom Yorke); 6) Around the Sun; 7) Aftermath; 8) Losing My Religion; 9) Walk Unafraid; 10) Leaving New York; 11) Imitation of Life; 12) Man on the Moon

The people's R.E.M. on the people's channel, from one decade to the next. If nothing else, you can say they've been a staggeringly consistent live act throughout the years.

Key tracks: How on earth could I even begin to choose here? Have you seen that tracklist?

The paradox of R.E.M. at the BBC is that the only kind of person who would ever think to get the chunky 8-CD, 1-DVD boxset version of this album instead of the summarised 2CD-edition is going to be an obsessive R.E.M. geek, and yet it's those completionist geeks who are arguably going to get the least out of this box.

On paper - and in reality as well - this is certainly an impressive set. Collecting together a number of concerts BBC have captured on tape over the decades, the spread of the sets is massive. The early 1984 gig captures R.E.M. during a time frame that's rarely been recorded in this quality and the 1998 John Peel session sees the band go through a number of rare Up deep cuts (which for any Up-truther like myself is manna from heaven), whereas the triumphant shots of the band on top of the world between the electrified rock and roll fever of the 1995 gig and the joyously hit-gloating 1999 Glastonbury headline set show just what a commanding force the band were at their peak years. The disparate radio session cuts compiled together on the first disc and the last set's intimate Around the Sun period concert where they traded arenas for a church round off the selection well. It's a display of R.E.M. literally through the decades and each time they knock it out of the park, with the recording quality staying solid throughout. You really can't complain if you're a fan and you're not averse to live material.

It just... gets repetitive, and occasionally even redundant if you are a fan and you're not averse to live material, meaning that you've picked up any of the other official live releases along the way like I have. These are all concerts for the general public so you'll be hearing the hits and particular fan favourites constantly ("Losing My Religion" and "Man on the Moon" are literally on every concert apart from the 1984 one) and though it's in a way interesting to track their live arrangements through the years, they're never that different. A good third of the boxset is around the 1998-1999 period as well, so no real change beyond the audience size. The 2004 gig is effectively just an abridged version of 2007's Live with the only real new feature being Thom Yorke backing Stipe so very hauntingly on "E-Bow the Letter" (even if it's not as incredible as the 1998 Tibetan Freedom rendition with Mr. Yorke also in tow). The first disc is by far the worst of the lot: if you've heard the MTV Unplugged sets third of the disc sounds like a reprise, and there's four songs taken literally from a 1998 John Peel Session, which you'll then hear in its full (on a separate night) on the very next disc. The only thing from the first disc that really feels like it warrants a separate release are the neat acoustic takes on "Supernatural Superserious" and Editors' "Munich", both of which display yet another period the box otherwise doesn't touch.

Practically speaking those are only issues if you've heard all the other live albums the band have released already and you've generally become so familiar with this band's touring output that there's no real excitement or revelation involved in these sets. Which is why for a completionist like myself this might be a little more underwhelming than you'd think because it's all very familiar territory, tried and tested and heard through b-sides, live DVDs and other concert recordings. But, don't let that make you think that the actual sets aren't quality - R.E.M. is absolutely on point on each and every single one of these and the 1984 and 1995 sets are particular delights. It's great to hear the band young and hungry on the former, playing parts of the back catalogue that they'd only really revisit when they were old veterans on Live at the Olympia nostalgia fest; meanwhile in 1995 they were just as hungry after returning to touring following an extended break across the last few album cycles, blowing off the roof with the new riff-tastic new songs and louder rock versions of the quiet acoustic songs they had blasted off to the stratosphere with in the early 1990s (the funk rock "Drive" is legendary). Each disc contains at least a few unique deep cuts as well, some of which are brand new to the R.E.M. live recording back catalogue overall. 

It's all really good if you think about it logically, really: great songs, great band, great performances. So necking points out of this feels downright performative, but even considering its sheer size it doesn't give me quite the same rush as some of the other R.E.M. live records I've rated higher. R.E.M. at the BBC doesn't have a particular angle beyond being an absolute metric ton of BBC recordings, so nine times out of ten when I'm in a live album mood for this band I'd end up reaching out for the more unique and stylised sets that have been released separately before, simply because they feel more tailored for specific moods and mindsets and that's just what my preference with live albums is. And yet, it's hard to fault any of the sets too much and I thoroughly enjoy them when they're on. So... a neat 7/10, good but not great, depends on the mood kind of score? Sure. But with no disrespect to the work ethos Messiers Berry, Buck, Mills and Stipe.

Just never binge this though or you'll really get sick of "Man on the Moon" in a way that you never, ever thought was possible.

Rating: 7/10

Physical corner: The box this is stored in is your 'typical' CD boxset: thick square box housed in a sturdy slipcase. The big booklet goes through some of the general background for each of the concerts and has a number of interviews from big name BBC DJs. It's nothing extravagant - functional at best perhaps - but it's got that solid feel-good physical aspect of a decent box set. The paper fold over the slipcase is a bit flimsy though, it's been barely glued on and one of these days I just know it's going to get ripped.

The Shins - Port of Morrow (2012)

1) The Rifle's Spiral; 2) Simple Song; 3) It's Only Life; 4) Bait and Switch; 5) September; 6) No Way Down; 7) For a Fool; 8) Fall of '82; 9) 40 Mark Strasse; 10) Port of Morrow

The Shins reborn as a studio project for Mercer, and hints of something spicier get muddled by an awkwardly safe professionalism elsewhere.

Key tracks: "The Rifle's Spiral", "No Way Down", "Port of Morrow"

The Shins started out as James Mercer's solo project: it only became a band when he convinced his bandmates from Flake Music to be his back-up musicians for the solo songs he had written and which were gaining considerable traction. While their debut had a largely acoustic sound, The Shins never particularly sounded like they weren’t a 'proper' band either to my ears - which means that I was one of the people who got caught by surprise when Mercer embraced the idea that The Shins was his project and he unceremoniously (and a little sheepishly) fired the rest of the band a few years after Wincing the Night Away. Port of Morrow is a turning point for The Shins as an entity, as Mercer teaming up with Danger Mouse in Broken Bells and the Sparklehorse collaboration record Dark Night of the Soul in the interim years inspired him to treat his main project the same way: hiring guns as the songs saw fit, collaborating without fixing people in place and tweaking the material in studio as long as his whims demanded.

Port of Morrow is still clearly in lineage with the first three albums given how unmistakable Mercer's voice and personality is, but it is undoubtedly a major change. The expanded instrumentation of Wincing the Night Away hinted at Mercer’s growing ambitions and now on his own he’s turned towards a full-blown studio experience, with a hi-fi and high-detail sound dominating the album and a star-studded cast list supporting him. Besider Mercer himself and the supervising superstar producer Greg Kurstin who play most of the parts on the album, Port of Morrow's credits roll is a list of names familiar to anyone who’s paid attention to indie rock liner notes in the 2000s: Sleater Kinney member and session drummer favourite Janet Weiss, Modest Mouse drummer Joe Plummer and Conor Oberst collaborators Nik Freitas and Nate Walcott feature among others, and even the ex-Shins members Dave Hernandez and Martin Crandall appear across the album. Mercer's changed attitude of utilising the right talent he wants in the exact section he needs it in is reflected in the credits list, and everything about Port of Morrow is equally pitch perfectly executed and micromanaged. The homegrown, grassroots sound of the first three albums is long gone, and in their place is a distinctly, and slightly disjointedly, professional approach.

I'm normally not one to criticise this kind of sound - I typically obsess over these studio-as-instrument records - but sometimes things go a little overboard even for my tastes. When even the stripped down acoustic palate cleanser "September" sounds so busy with everything that's happening in the background that it's just as loaded with elements as anything else on the record, you know the sound might be a little too engineered. The magic with albums like these - when they work - is that each detail matters and is clearly audible, even if you need headphones for it. Port of Morrow, in comparison, sounds stuffed and overproduced, which is a word I don't wave around lightly. There's a lot of clean and quite honestly sterile sheen all over the place either hiding countless instrumental details that turn out to contribute to surprisingly little or loading up elements that only serve to clutter the sound, such as the thoroughly unnecessary synth squelches all over the chorus of "Fall of '82". I’m not entirely sure Greg Kurstin - most famous for Adele, Sia, Kelly Clarkson et al - has really been the right fit for Mercer’s tone or songwriting, and his touch often feels at odds at wanting something punchier out of Mercer’s gentle indie pop hand.

That strange kind of professional po-faced attitude is present across the album including the actual songs: everything’s very grown up and even when some of the whimsy of yesteryear does appear, like in the bubbly platformer game jungle level music of "Bait and Switch", it doesn't sound natural - but that could just be the heavy-handed production talking. They're still Shins songs but in fitted business suits and cosy office jobs, fit for big budget coming of age film soundtracks and smooth radios: listen to "It's Only Life" and "For a Fool" to hear what I mean, both middle-of-the-road ballads that lend the impression of Mercer and Kurstin's song selection process resembling a curated audience test for maximum easy likability (though, granted, I have a small genuine soft spot for "For a Fool" because I've played it so much on Rocksmith after picking up bass again). It’d be easy to blame Kurstin here but I think at least half the blame is on Mercer himself, who’s still adept at delightful and catchy melodies but he rarely bats for anything exciting across the record and rather seems to play it safe. “Simple Song” is a good example, because it’s such a rush with its big booming drums and a lush chorus to die for with an instant-hook vocal melody to boot; it’s impossible not to love it at least a little. But at some point you start wondering whether you enjoy “Simple Song” in itself, or if you enjoy it because it’s so eerily close to a more top 40 ready version of “Phantom Limb” off the last album. “Simple Song” is Mercer repeating the incredible lead single of his last record but cutting together a flashier edit of it, and it works because of course it does. But it's a bit clinical.

But I'm still a sucker for Mercer's melodies and for the most part, that's enough to keep me enjoying Port of Morrow to the extent that every once in a blue moon it gets a spin in the player. It’s not a particularly thrilling record, but there aren't really that many real flubs in the tracklist either and mostly it's a pleasant romp through some overproduced pop jingles, where some parts captivate as much as others are on autopilot. Fortunately the former outweigh the latter to some extent and occasionally there's genuine delight, such as the sunny and warm "No Way Down" that's a momentary freedom from the album's heavyhandedness. There’s also two absolute knockouts with "The Rifle's Spiral" and "Port of Morrow", both of which take advantage of the laborious studio environment and make a strong positive showcase for Mercer’s new approach. "The Rifle's Spiral" is a real journey despite its three and half minute length, with Weiss conjuring a hypnotic drum shuffle that propels the song's disjointed guitars and hectic synth noise into dramatic ebbs and flows - and yet it still functions like an indie pop singalong, just something more surreal and unhinged. The title track meanwhile drowns itself in atmospheric keyboards, letting Mercer's falsetto swim beside the genuinely lovely arrangement and evocative melody. Neither song sounds like anything ever done under The Shins moniker and yet they work perfectly as part of that continuum, and they do their job selling the new concept. They sound like the kind of brave new start that Mercer was seemingly aiming for by relaunching his project; it's a shame then that outside those songs he often plays things curiously safe.

Rating: 6/10

Various Artists - Help!: A Day in the Life (2005)

1) Coldplay - How You See the World No. 2; 2) Razorlight - Kirby's House; 3) Radiohead - I Want None of This; 4) Keane & Faultline - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road; 5) Emmanuel Jal - Gua; 6) Gorillaz - Hong Kong; 7) Manic Street Preachers - Leviathan; 8) The Kaiser Chiefs - I Heard It Through the Grapevine; 9) Damien Rice - Cross-Eyed Bear; 10) The Magic Numbers - Gone Are the Days; 11) Tinariwen - Cler Achel; 12) The Coral - It Was Nothing; 13) Mylo - Mars Needs Women; 14) Maximo Park - Wasteland; 15) Elbow - Snowball; 16) Bloc Party - The Present; 17) Hard-Fi - Help Me Please; 18) The Go! Team - Phantom Broadcast; 19) Babyshambles - From Bollywood to Battersea; 20) George & Antony - Happy Christmas, War Is Over

A charity album turned scene compilation, mid-00s UK in a thrilling nutshell.

Key tracks: "Leviathan" (Manic Street Preachers), "Gone Are the Days" (The Magic Numbers), "Kirby's House" (Razorlight)

War Child - a UK-based charity established to aid children in war-torn regions - at one point in time realised that charity music compilations are an excellent way to raise funds for good causes, especially if you actually give the artists free reins rather than go for jolly charity singles. 1995 saw the release of War Child's first collection The Help Album, and since then the charity have been periodically releasing collections of brand new music to raise awareness and money, focusing on the current and contemporary artists of the given year the release comes out, each of whom contribute something new and unheard - whatever they want.

Because of the way they come about, War Child albums have inadvertently become snapshots of the British music scene of whichever time period one gets released in. The Help Album united the biggest names in and around Britpop as well the nascent threads of pre-millennium anxiety that was about to take over, becoming one of the decade's definitive various artist compilations if you're in any way that taste inclined. In 2005, on the tenth anniversary of the original release, the official sequel Help!: A Day in the Life acted as a similar definition of where British music was in the mid-00s: the rise of the new art rock scene, the oversaturation of landfill indie, the masters of yore exploring new paths and the mashing of other sounds and genres into the traditionally British songwriting, represented here through the twenty songs. Besides the returning veterans (Radiohead, Manic Street Preachers, Damon Albarn by way of Gorillaz) and the few then-upcoming future stars (Bloc Party, Elbow, The Go! Team), looking at the tracklist is a right blast in the past, glowing with names that at one point in time meant something but now have been lost completely in time: The Magic Numbers, Mylo, The Coral, etc, etc. If you want to know what music in the UK sounded like in 2005, Help!: A Day in the Life is practically a Nuggets compilation.

Each War Child selection comes with a gimmick and the one for Help! was that each song was recorded, produced and released within the same 24 hours, taking advantage of the growing digital download market (the CD arrived a little later). Given the circumstances, it's really surprising just how much effort nearly everyone involved has put in - maybe realising that going for zero effort in a charity compilation probably isn't cool, not that it stopped Babyshambles whose "From Bollywood to Battersea" is exactly the kind of "pub's closing in five, let's call it a day" garbage they were synonymous with (why we ever as a species thought Pete Doherty should have a record deal, I've no idea). Coldplay recycle a prior Japanese bonus track off X&Y and call it 'No.2' (though the differences are so minor I can't even detect them), but at least it's a good song, and Chris Martin sounds downright angry at one point in it which is a surprising turn of events. A number of artists also turn in covers, which isn't too unexpected: The Kaiser Chiefs turn "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" into a laddy pub disco anthem (shudder), Keane's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" sounds like a Keane song, and Boy George and Anohni dueting on John Lennon's "Happy Xmas" is some kind of a LGBT fever dream that strangely works, Ending the album on a Christmas song (and let's remember this was released in autumn originally) is a bit off-kilter and out of everything on the record it screams "charity album" the most, but there's sincerity and warmth in the makeshift duo's performance that closes the record in an unexpectedly poignant way.

It's the original material that keeps me coming back to this record though. The artists I already knew and loved are in strong form, with Manics previewing their imminent return to guitar riffs with the fiery and frivolent (those handclaps!) "Leviathan", Elbow's "Snowball" is full of barely restrained anger as Guy Garvey fantasises over the ghosts of war-killed innocents coming back to haunt Tony Blair over a deceptively pretty melody which by the end has morphed into a villain song, The Go! Team's "Phantom Broadcast" is a delightful Bollywood spaghetti Western theme, and the contemplative "Hong Kong" is one of my favourite Gorillaz songs and absolutely worth looking up for anyone who enjoys Demon Days. I don't think anyone else in Radiohead but Yorke ever even knew "I Want None of This" existed and it's certainly no "Lucky" (their original The Help Album contribution), but Yorke mashing his piano hauntingly is always engaging to at least some degree. Meanwhile the "forgotten" artists remind why they did inspire budding fanbases in one point in time - The Magic Numbers have always left me a little cold but "Gone Are the Days" genuinely makes me wish I'd love them because it's such a jubilantly lovely summer number, and Mylo's "Mars Needs Women" is a fun slice of mid-00s hipster house. Even the pub rock acts I could barely stomach back in the day cause me to question my 2000s self, courtesy Razorlight's "Kirby's House" and Hard-Fi's "Help Me Please" - both more engaging and inspired than anything else I've ever heard from the two acts, as if the mere presence of the more esteemed peers pushed them further (both acts also re-recorded these songs for their follow-up albums, which means even they were impressed by the tracks).

Not all here is gold and that's just the nature of twenty-track various artists compilations, and the slightly less exciting cuts most of the time pick up enough power through their peers that they work in the flow, next to a lot of great music from acts that may not have crossed your mind for eons. The thing is, I bought this for pennies for the sole purpose of nabbing a few non-album tracks off artists I like and yet it's turned out to be something very different: a rock solid scene compilation. The 2000s were when I really took off as a music fan and my attention was very heavily focused in the British music media and independent scene; Help!: A Day in the Life brings me right back to that time period, of online fanzines and forums, of hype machine going up and down on each new act. It was a genuinely exciting and fertile period for British music, and the wild and varied sounds and accents of this compilation represents it incredibly well.

Rating: 8/10

The Shins - Wincing the Night Away (2007)

1) Sleeping Lessons; 2) Australia; 3) Pam Berry; 4) Phantom Limb; 5) Sealegs; 6) Red Rabbits; 7) Turn on Me; 8) Black Wave; 9) Spilt Needles; 10) Girl Sailor; 11) A Comet Appears

The Shins expand their sound and give more space for their signature melodies to grow in. This is what they had been building for and now it's here and it's wonderful.

Key tracks: "Phantom Limb", "Turn on Me", "A Comet Appears"

The bubbling synths that open "Sleeping Lessons" are forever ingrained in my head. It was the first song - I think - I heard from The Shins, when the reviews for Wincing the Night Away were doing rounds and one of them helpfully contained a link to the song; for whatever reason that opening brings that era of my life into my mind so tightly, more than anything else on this record. The whimsically dreamy start to the song is a fun red herring though, because shortly after the song explodes into one of The Shins' most rollicking, hectic bangers. The song grows into full bloom, and listened to in retrospect after I had become familiar with The Shins' other albums, the band themselves did the same on Wincing the Night Away.

The longest ever running joke with The Shins is how they're going to CHANGE YOUR LIFE and it's so, so boring to repeat at this stage (even though I've referenced it myself, as if bound by law), but hearing "Sleeping Lessons" and then later on the full album really did have an impact, albeit a lesser one. Wincing the Night Away was among the first American indie albums I remember getting really acquainted with after spending most of the 2000s fixated on Britrock and my neighbouring Nordic regions, and it was a breath of brand new air in its whimsy, splendour and lushness. As much as it's a time capsule for me (a good half the album's worth of songs bring back some really vivid memories of certain places I happened to hear them in), the truth is it's only gotten better with age, even if perhaps unfairly so as I now get to compare it to other Shins albums. In 2021 as I write this, I own all The Shins albums that have been released so far and that's solely thanks to this album; and even if most of those records have been diminishing returns or have only carried brief glimpses of what I fell in love with here, I keep obediently following Mercer because at one point in his lifetime, he made these ten songs (eleven, if you really want to count "Pam Berry" that's technically a chopped off intro) and that's enough to make me a devotee. 

From a chronological perspective Wincing the Night Away is everything the first two albums ever promised about The Shins, and everything it does is something that they'd be compared to forevermore - it well and truly establishes The Shins, gives them their final form. James Mercer and co are still firmly stood in their old indie pop grounds and the evolutionary line from Oh, Inverted World to here is crystal clear, but on the other hand Mercer's yearning for a more produced, layered sound is starting to gain real territory here. Hence, the instrumentation isn't limited to just twee keyboards and the occasional horn or violin flourish on top of the traditional band quartet set: the credits lists synthesizers, a bouzouki, a dulcimer, MIDI programming and a cat piano (!?), among other instruments. Most of these were also played by Mercer himself, as he's starting to show more explicitly that The Shins were his project through and through, something that he'd declare in all capital letters come next album. Here though, he hits the sweet spot between the two approaches. The songs are lush and vibrant, but they still have that intimate, homegrown feel that was so charming about the first two albums, as well as this one. And besides, every little extra element is there only in service of The Melody.

 
The Melody is the king here. Mercer is incredible and relentless in how he creates the most addictive, hook-heavy melodies both with his voice and instruments, and they all sound perfectly natural and effortless like they just blossomed into existence instead of being meticulously engineered to be weapons of mass affection. Shaking away the basement band aesthetics of the first two albums has only increased his power, because now those melodies are engaged with flourishing, rich arrangements, which act as highlighters and underliners for said melodies. "Phantom Limb" and "Turn on Me" are two of the best songs Mercer's written so far - and honestly probably ever will - and they're deeply layered in a stream of hooks and signature melodies one after another. "Phantom Limb" is even indulgent about it, closing off with a long wordless sing-along of vocal harmonies that's the perfect cherry on top of the song's irresistable run; "Turn on Me" meanwhile doesn't need such tricks to assert its dominance, as that bullseye chorus is more than enough (and the Y-O-U hook is somehow both obvious and ingenius at the same time). The sugar-bouncy "Australia" that constantly tries to one-up itself and the more calm and collected but none less lush "Girl Sailor", placed perfectly in the tracklist to break tension where it's needed, aren't too far behind either. These songs are such a celebration of songcrafts, smarts and arrangement magic, and they're pure joy.

The other added benefit of The Shins expanding their palette for Wincing the Night Away is that for the first time ever they've brought in some real variety, after how both of the first two albums (and particularly Chutes Too Narrow) were perhaps a little one-note. The variety on Wincing the Night Away doesn't mean just some changes in tempo and tone either, as Mercer takes the opportunity to take his posse into brand new waters. In most cases it means a heavier lean on keyboards as a shared lead instrument, like on soft and dreamy "Red Rabbits", but when Wincing the Night Away really lets go of its inhibitions it's a sight to behold. The surreal sway of "Sealegs", driven by its robotic drum machine and off-kilter speak-song vocals, is mind-blowingly different if you arrive here after the first two albums and almost unrecognisable as The Shins even when compared to everything else on this record, but it's a wobbly, woozy delight that subtly knits together the various threads of the album's new ideas under its more extreme guise. To a lesser extent the tightly-wound tension "Spilt Needles" is the same, first locked into a groove lead by a rhythm so sharp it jumps out immediately, before diving into a more familiar territory in its bridge, revealing a soft spot in its armor for a moment. Both "Spilt Needles" and "Sealegs" are still awash with those signature melodies, but they are practically alien in form and it's done exquisitely. 

They're also shifts to a more serious territory. The Shins have spent 90% of their song catalogue so far walking on sunshine from a musical perspective even when Mercer's lyrics were often dripping in surprisingly brutal imagery, but the tone of the songs is coming closer to the lyrics on Wincing the Night Away, even if it's still dominantly a bright indie pop album. "Sealegs" and "Spilt Needles" make the first moves, but the album's sparsest songs lay down on this even heavier, with "Black Wave" matching its title sonically to a staggering decree with its hazy, textural murkiness and "A Comet Appears" closing the album with a scared sigh. "A Comet Appears" is, overall, one of the album's real high points: after so many songs full of wim and energy, its time-worn heart and Mercer's quietly desperate delivery are an emotional stab in the heart, and it's where he utilises that gift of melody like a blade. It's both beautiful and devastating. Where "Sleeping Lessons" revved up the album ready to go in a flash of excitement, "A Comet Appears" is its polar opposite and lays the record's weary head into a long rest with a hint of sadness that it's over. I primarily associate Wincing the Night Away with positive emotions, and that's partly why "A Comet Appears" is so impactful, as it tears the facade away before disappearing into the ether.

All of that - the variety in styles, the emotional complexity, the expanded sound arsenal - is exactly what the first two Shins records needed; and compared to the later records, the production hasn't yet become overbearing. But Wincing the Night Away isn't great because it's The Shins But More! but because it feels like Mercer finally gets to realise his own potential as a songwriter here, and the decision to embellish the sound is what made it possible. The purple prose and lavish praise for the songs above aren't because they just sound great, but because as songs they are such vividly written little masterpieces that hook into your life. "New Slang" on Oh, Inverted World made an impression to everyone who heard it because its central melody felt like it spoke to you (you, directly) from the very second you first heard it and it opened a pathway to your heart you never knew existed. Someone who's written something that great is unlikely to never do so again, but it took until this point for Mercer to repeat the trick and when he finally did, the floodgates opened and he wrote several songs equally as evocative and impressive; I worked my way down the discography backwards from here and it took me a fair long while to really get to grips with the first two albums because there was a stark absence of songs so clearly realised, apart from that one song everyone loved. But there's an abundance of such inspiration and warmth to the songs here that you find yourself swallowed into their dream-like worlds, and that's what makes Wincing the Night Away not just The Shins' best - and most consistent - record, but honestly one of my favourite indie pop records in general. The Shins are a band who probably aren't all that special in the grand scheme of things for me, but who I hold special nonetheless and it's solely because of this.

Rating: 9/10

The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow (2003)

1) Kissing the Lipless; 2) Mine’s Not a High Horse; 3) So Says I; 4) Young Pilgrims; 5) Saint Simon; 6) Fighting in a Sack; 7) Pink Bullets; 8) Turn a Square; 9) Gone for Good; 10) Those to Come

Mercer's posse graduates into a proper band, but struggle with presenting anything that really sticks this time around. All very pleasant though.

Key tracks: "Mine's Not a High Horse", "So Says I", "Young Pilgrims"

Chutes Too Narrow falls in that awkward category of albums where I struggle to think of anything to actually criticize, and yet it still fails to click with me. The early/mid-00s indie sound so wonderfully represented by the album is close to my heart, it retains everything I enjoyed about Oh, Inverted World and appreciate The Shins for in general, and at various points during my lifetime I’ve called James Mercer a melodic genius (sometimes with hyperbole, sometimes dead seriously) and he's up to his usual tricks here too; but no matter how many boxes I check as I go down the list of things I like about the album, this is still the Shins album that’s remained the most distant for me. What am I supposed to make of that?

The Shins are a livelier bunch on this album than on Oh, Inverted World, having graduated from Mercer’s bedroom solo project-come-band into an actual group of sorts, and the more vibrant full band arrangements throughout the record reflect this. There’s fewer cosy acoustic bedroom strums and there's a lot more electric guitars and pep in the backbone: some parts even rock, or at least what passes as rock in The Shins’ world. The best parts of the songs are still Mercer’s vocal melodies which make his unintelligible word salad lyrics come to life as well as the quirky keyboard parts that are all over the record, both of which were also the best parts of Oh, Inverted World and just sound as great when they’re texturing more energetic tracks. Chutes Too Narrow isn’t a million miles away from the debut despite going more electric, but it’s a step towards the more characterised Shins sound that comes to mind when thinking about Mercer's merry bunch.

 

Still, this whole album somehow leaves me largely unaffected about it even if I do enjoy it in purely objective terms. I guess my main issue here is that there aren’t any real stone cold stand-out songs. “Mine’s Not a High Horse” is the closest the album has one, which in its chorus hits that special Mercer zone where the best parts of the album are distilled into one snappy section, the whimsical keyboard melody climbing around Mercer’s voice and the rollicking rhythm. “So Says I” is another standout but I’m honestly hard-pressed to say whether it’s because I genuinely think it’s a great song, or if it sticks simply because its manic pogoing and twee glam rock attitude distinguishes it so much from everything else around it; the whole album is a caffeine shot into the Shins formula and “So Says I” is its most hyper-awake part. Once the pretty acoustic debut throwback “Young Pilgrims” has had its turn, Chutes Too Narrow settles into a comfortable loop of pleasant and perky indie pop ditties that strum, jangle and frolic in a similar manner over and over again - the country twang of “Gone for Good” is about the only time the album pulls a new trick out of its hat - and it shortly comes to a close after the half hour mark. It all passes by a little too quickly and without stirring things too much: itt doesn’t outstay its welcome, and yet after it’s finished it doesn’t feel like it ever really made much of a visit in the first place. Chutes Too Narrow is a little too unassuming for its own good, and not enough of it really springs to life.

The Shins at their best are a genuine joy and at their worst Mercer throws out overwrought treacle and calls it a song, and Chutes Too Narrow falls so squarely in the dead right middle that it doesn’t tick the reaction off in either direction. It's an accomplished record, I'll give it that - I've been enjoying its presence in my rotation in the weeks preceding this review and so it's not like I can really say a bad word about it. But in the group's chronology it’s the phase between the intimacy of Oh, Inverted World and the full bloom of Wincing the Night Away, and both of those albums offer more distinguished (and distinguishable) takes on the ideas presented on Chutes Too Narrow. This is like a little appetiser to give you an idea of what you can expect from The Shins and to pique your interest towards the courses to follow, but you’ll forget it the moment the next dish comes along. 

Rating: 5/10

Lennie Moore - Outcast: Original Soundtrack (1999)

1) Prelude; 2) Daokas; 3) Soldier's Camp; 4) Heaven on Adelpha; 5) World of Marshes; 6) Fatally Wounded; 7) Main Theme; 8) The Ancient Forest World; 9) Watch Out!; 10) Let's Fight!; 11) World of Snow; 12) World of Temples; 13) Main Theme (Reprise); 14) Oriental Spirit; 15) World of Mountains; 16) Orchestra Rehearsal; 17) Ülukai Dance

Sweeping orchestral mountains and valleys, rousing vivid landscapes with extended compositions. A classic soundtrack for a classic game.

 

Key tracks: "Heaven on Adelpha", "World of Snow", "World of Temples"

Outcast is one of those cult classics that by some strange string of fate has ended up becoming something big and meaningful to little old me. It’s always one of the first no-brainer choices when I’m asked to list my all-time favourite games, and its relative obscurity has in some way made it feel even more like it’s something special to me personally. Its grand open-world design, character-driven story beats and epic scale was something very different from my usual video game habits when I encountered it by chance, and its very distinct personality best described as European made it feel incredibly different to anything else that tried to do the same afterwards but always felt they fell short. It’s probably the first game that genuinely drew an emotional reaction out of me when I completed it for the first time. In many ways, it revealed a new aspects to one of my favourite pastimes at the time, and that special magic still remains as I’ve replayed it countless times over the years.

What set Outcast apart from other games at the time is how it presented itself: not just in its graphics with the rather unique voxel-based looks, but in the overall scope of its design. It’s a weird game that dreamt big, and Appeal (the developers) treated it like a special prodigy that could achieve those dreams. A lot of effort and money went into making the game feel that you were in fact witnessing a grand cinematic adventure, and one of the aspects helping to drive that was the soundtrack composed by Lennie Moore and performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra and Choir. By today’s standards this isn’t a big deal but an actual orchestrated game soundtrack was absolutely not a thing back in 1999. CD quality audio in games hadn't been around for all that long relatively speaking and so most games aiming for the same style of music went with MIDI strings, and games had only recently started to stretch their wings to the new sonic extents that the evolving technology allowed. This was one of the big promotional points around Outcast as well, with a blurb on the game box advertising it as one of the main features and the orchestra getting credited early on in the movie-like opening credits roll. 

 

 
The orchestral score of Outcast doesn't simply rely on having a big, big sound. The greatest thing about Moore's compositions is that the songs get to live and breathe, ebb and flow. Most of the songs on this soundtrack go for around five minutes, often longer, and not a minute is wasted and only rarely looped. Outcast's big worlds meant players would spend a long time in particular areas and so the songs have been constructed with that in mind, with the multi-minute compositions moving between different moods and variations on their key melodies across their length. Moore went to painstaking lengths to give the game a unified feel across its score while making sure all the various areas had their own flair, and his songs are miniature pieces of art on their own rather than simply backing music. They paint worlds with their movements, particularly the songs dedicated to the key regions of the game. Centerpiece songs such as the pastoral arcs of "World of Temples", the deep-seated melancholy of "World of Snow", the middle-eastern flourishes of the sprawling "Oriental Spirit" and the dramatic slow-builds of "World of Mountains" colour their respective areas with a gripping evocative touch, glueing your attention to the world around you from the moment you step foot into a new area with a new arrangement above it. 

I'm normally not a big fan of orchestral scores, and nine times out of ten they're the epitome of soundtracks that are there to exist and fill space rather than bring something special to the overall experience. The twist is that I think this soundtrack ruined all the others for me. This was the first orchestral game soundtrack I remember hearing and it's such a fantastic score that any other game walking in its footsteps felt like a complete letdown musically. It's still in my opinion among the best soundtracks of its kind, not just in games but across mediums e.g. films (where orchestral scores are, by default, more prominent but also usually even more throwaway). Moore took every advantage he could out of the chance to compose something with a large orchestra in tow and I'm not afraid to say that the results are emotionally stirring for me. Heck, "Heaven on Adelpha" in particular is a vividly beautiful song that can honestly get me a little misty-eyed if caught on a tender moment; it's high up among my favourite video game pieces. 

 

Everything about Outcast's music reflects the game in general so well: it's a labour of love, created by people who truly believed in their art and poured their everything into it to ensure that it was something unique and genuinely special. It's a remarkable soundtrack and among my favourites.

 

And if you're wondering what nicks off one point from the score of one of my favourite games of all time, it's the three combat music pieces where the soundtrack's general building blocks are a little ill-fitting and get stretched a bit too thin for their own good. The combat is probably the game's weakest part, and that applies for the music too.

Rating: 9/10