sw’as

I lie slightly in the title, there is possibly one more disappointing thing, but I’ll get to that later. Chutes Too Narrow was featured on Triple J (the best radio station known to man kind) a while back, and that is how I became aware of The Shins’ excellence. Just like another of my favourite bands, Eels, they have produced an album where every song is great. The only difference between Chutes Too Narrow and Blinking Lights and Other Revelations is the length. While the Eels album clocks in at a most fantastic two disks and 1 hour, 33 minutes and 9 seconds The Shins’ comes in at less than one third of that, only 33 minutes and 50 seconds.

I was convinced to buy a Shins album while watching the movie Garden State^[1] in which the character Sam [Natalie Portman] says “You gotta hear this one song, it’ll change your life, I promise you…” about a Shins tune (although not one on Chutes Too Narrow). I’m not sure I could take it that far but wow their music is good.

Back to the only other disappointment, the album doesn’t want to play properly in my computer. I’m hoping it’s not some funky form of copy protection. I’m going to take it back and exchange it.

But I couldn’t possibly end on a note like that…Go out today and buy Chutes Too Narrow - or don’t, see if I care^[2].

1. Which totally deserves a post of its own. Produced and directed by Zach Braff of (for me at least) Scrubs fame. [↩]
2. That really sounded far too much like an advertisement when I read it back. It’s a good album, I like it. That’s all I’m trying to say. [↩]