It is with great relief that Portland’s indie veterans The Shins are back in business with Port of Morrow, their first album since 2007’s Wincing the Night Away. Not that James Mercer (the only remaining original Shin) has been twiddling his thumbs for five years. In 2010, Broken Bells - Mercer’s fruitful collaboration with Danger Mouse - released a debut album that took the bittersweet pop of The Shins to more experimental heights.
Port of Morrow, however, is a different proposition. Menacing opening track, ‘The Rifle’s Spiral’ begins with a pulsing rhythm section that gives a far from subtle nod towards a fondness of Clinic. Glacial synths and atonal guitar stabs compliment a lyric that has nothing but bitter contempt for the human race. It is a joy to hear Mercer transform his existential terror into attack mode rather than delivering it from under his duvet.
The Shins retreat back into more innocuous territory with ‘Simple Song’, an empathetic pep-talk directed at some unnamed protégé. “I know that things can really get rough when you go it alone / Don’t go thinking you’ve gotta be tough and play like a stone,” sings Mercer, channelling his usual world-weariness into some constructive advice for a kindred spirit. Despite the soaring chorus and crashing drums, however, ‘Simple Song’ is a little on the bland side.
The absurdly catchy ‘No Way Down’ is the obvious single. Bouncing basslines and sparkling guitars, however, do little to disguise that Mercer has moved out of his own head and into the grim domestic reality of 2012. His self-flagellating narrator wonders, “What have we done? / How'd we get so far from the sun? / Lost, lost in an oscillating phase / Where a tiny few catch all of the rays.” Only The Shins could make the words “Apologies to the sick and the young / Get used to the dust in your lungs,” sound upbeat.
Disappointingly, The Shins spend too much of the album on the back foot. The laid back cadence of ‘September’ and ‘For a Fool’ are pleasant enough, but both songs are pretty passive laments. The gauntlet laid down by ‘The Rifle’s Spiral’ isn’t picked up until the
painfully candid title track. Mercer’s aching falsetto paints a grim picture of a father’s dread for his children’s future. “Under my hat, I know the lines are all imagined / A fact of life, I must impress on my little girls / I know my place amongst the creatures in the pageant / And there are flowers in the garbage, and a skull under your curls.” It is a far cry for the up-and-at-‘em optimism of ‘Simple Song’.
On the whole, musically speaking, Port of Morrow is a fairly easy listen, but the real substance is in the lyrics. Mercer sounds as anxious as ever about the world he inhabits and, unsurprisingly, he isn’t short on words to express himself. Listen carefully.