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
The follow-up to The Shins' debut,
Oh, Inverted World, was never going to be an easy task. However, the New Mexico
quartet have made it look so. Worth the £10.99 from HMV alone is the cartoony,
South-Park-esque cover which depicts farming countryside. But it is the songs that comprise
the 33:50 of this album that make it really worth its money.
Kissing The Lipless is one of those quiet-bit/loud-bit openers, which, on 3 seconds,
features a communal whoop from the group. It sets the stall out perfectly. Second is the
confusingly-titled Mine's Not A High Horse, but a beautiful song, reminiscing of
"the day your high horse died". Third is a song that can only be a tip of the hat in the
direction of The Beatles. So Says I, the album's first single, contains the brilliant
line We Are A Brutal Kind. It's this realisation that makes the album what it is -
a movement towards brilliant indie, away from naivety.
Fourth comes Young Pilgrims, which starts off with a lush melody, and once again features
brilliant lyrics, as does track five, Saint Simon. A sound reflective (if unwittingly)
of The Coral's last album works well after the opening songs have been (whisper it) a little
bland in terms of instrumentation. It sinks into a la-di-da-di-da section with violin at the
1:40 mark - a welcome interlude.
Next is Fighting In A Sack - a song which discusses "coming off the track". An inevitability
for a US indie album, but nevertheless a tuneful one. Best of all comes next - Pink Bullets -
one of those brilliant alt-country moments where the guitars just follow a pattern, whilst singer
James Mercer provides meaningful and well-enunciated lyrics on top. The best line is at 0:58 -
"Over the ramparts you tossed the scent of your skin". It's heaven in todays world of
spelling-it-out popstars. And when you think it's got into full flow, it stops and almost whispers
some beautiful lines that bring a tear to the eye.
After that is the deceptively upbeat Turn A Square, the country-esque Gone For Good and
beautiful closer Those To Come, which repeats one of the best recent guitar riffs relentlessly,
fading to close. It's remeniscent of a beautiful dream.
The overall impression I got from this album is one of awe, contemplation and surreal beauty. It may
not be long at just over half an hour, but it's well worth its money. If you only buy one obscure
record this year, make it this.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
