By
Phil Leckman
The Shins
Oh, Inverted World
(Sub Pop)
Grade: B+
Ah, summer - even for those of us who work hard and sweat harder from June through August, that little word still conjures soothing images: portable fans, cool glasses of lemonade and long days by the pool. It's quite a mystique, and one that not even the harshest dose of workaday reality can quite dispel. James Mercer, singer and guitarist for The Shins, puts it a little more poetically: "when they're parking their cars on your chest, you've still got a view of the summer sky."
When it comes to summer skies, Mercer and his bandmates know of what they speak - Oh, Inverted World, the Albuquerque foursome's Sub Pop debut, is nearly as close as indie-pop music comes to channeling summer's elusive mystique.
The Shins aren't exactly groundbreaking - Oh, Inverted World's breezy, melodic rock is redolent with echoes of Donovan, the Beach Boys and other '60s pop icons, marking the band as retro-pop peers of the Apples in Stereo, Belle and Sebastian and a host of other currently fashionable groups. This emulation of 35 year-old sounds can easily come off as slavish imitation - if you think the Beach Boys sometimes get boring, the tiresome rehash peddled by many of their modern disciples will hit you like Sominex. Thankfully, the Shins largely avoid this trap - most of the music here, like "New Slang," the album's memorable single, melds a modern indie-rock aesthetic with the '60s flashbacks, creating a final product that's neither soulless math-rock nor mindless retro retread. Most of Oh, Inverted World is simply tuneful, classic pop, the kind that can make even the most grueling day at the office seem like an endless summer Saturday.
