Album Review - The Shins: Port of Morrow

The Shins
Port of Morrow
Rating: Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It

There are many bands that are truly made up of a single person, and the sound of the band rises and falls at their direction, regardless of who is in the band at the time. Mark E. Smith is The Fall, Jarvis Cocker is Pulp, and Jamie Stewart is Xiu Xiu. Other bands are so collectively a whole, one member's absence is glaringly obvious. R.E.M. suffered from the loss of Bill Berry, Graham Coxon was sorely missed from Blur on Think Tank, and Suede just never had that same sense of swagger after Bernard Butler left. James Mercer, the leader of The Shins, sort of falls in the middle of these groups. After releasing three albums of witty, jangly indie pop, Mercer fired the remaining band members, stating in a 2009 interview with Pitchfork that "I started to have production ideas that basically required some other people." For Port of Morrow, Mercer brought in producer Greg Kurstin, who has worked with artists as diverse as Peaches, Lily Allen, Kylie Minogue, Ke$ha, and even Britney Spears. This switch to a more pop leaning producer, coupled with the jettisoning of the former band members, I was expecting there to be a huge difference in sound and direction. Honestly, it sounds like a Shins record, with the only noticeable change being the production values, as the charming looseness of previous records makes way for the high buff and shiny gloss of the new. This is not necessarily a negative thing as the record itself sounds great, it just has a different feel to it.

For me, the songs that work the best on Port of Morrow are the tracks that use this glossy production to best advantage, letting all the oddities in the mix come out. "The Rifle's Spiral," for example, combines pristine guitar jangles with spiky bursts, while what sounds like decaying ham radio transmissions burbles underneath.



Title track "Port of Morrow" has a lonely, meandering feel. Soft percussion, delicate pianos, and Mercer's haunting falsetto transform into a brilliant song about "the bitter mechanics of life."



The bossa nova-esque "Bait and Switch" travels on wisps of organ, slide guitar, and a breezy vibe, gathering in strength and punch as it moves forward.



And the gorgeous production shines through on the melancholy "40 Mark Strasse," which reads almost like a retelling of The Virgin Suicides, the narrator recalling a strange, lovely girl he used to watch over:

"You had to know I wanted
Something from you then
Too young to know just what it was
Something more than a friend
Is that you at the end"



What keeps Port of Morrow earth bound for me is that too often the production overshadows the songs, the buff and polish Silkwood showering the songs into non-descriptness. "It's Only Life" saddles one of Mercer's loveliest melodies with a lumbering backing track.



I could easily hear an American Idol contestant sing the radio ready "No Way Down."



And "Fall of '82" has an odd 70s AOR vibe that doesn't feel sincere.



And these missteps are more glaring when they are coming up against great tracks like "Simple Song," which show Mercer is still really in control of great song writing and strong melodies.



I'm not one of those people that demand bands stick to what made them popular in the first place, but honestly, with Port of Morrow, I longed for the more quirky aspects of The Shins. What we get is a very professional pop record from Mercer that quietly announces that it wants to be very successful. The spit shined production, for me at any rate, holds me back at arms length, not allowing me to truly experience something intimate with him. Even so, Mercer is such a brilliant songwriter that it overcomes these limitations.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and peaks one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.