Product Description

'Chutes Too Narrow' is the second album from Albuquerque based four piece, The Shins. Produced by Phil EK (Modest Mouse, Built To Spill, Pretty Girls Make Graves), the album is a mix of breezy indie pop songs and up-tempo acoustic numbers and also includes the single 'So Says I'.

Track Listing

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

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1814 in Music
• Published on: 2003
• Released on: 2004-08-16
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Chutes Too Narrow, the second album by American indie-rockers the Shins, isn't the defining moment that their debut was. But that's by no means a bad thing--in the US at least, O, Inverted World was almost universally lauded as one of the best albums of the new millennium. So expectations were almost unfairly high for Chutes Too Narrow, making another exceptional Shins album sound almost ordinary, but only by comparison. The Shins still manage to combine a timeless grasp of melody and songcraft with a thorougly modern willingness to experiment and a fair share of quirkiness--the end result is pitched somewhere between Steve Malkmus and Brian Wilson.

Though the Shins are a band, Chutes Too Narrow sounds more like a singer-songwriter's album than its predecessor. Many of the sentiments here are deeply personal; often, the bruised, rambling lyrics sound in stark contrast to the sunny arrangements, infusing the whole thing with a sense of nervous giddiness. Indeed, album opener "Kissing the Lipless" starts with the mellow strum of an acoustic guitar, lulling the listener (and, presumably, the song's intended) into a false sense of security before singer James Mercer launches into a passionate tirade ("Secretly I want to bury in the yard / the grey remains of a friendship scarred"). Fans of modern American indie music, particularly Modest Mouse and Spoon, will find that there's much for them to enjoy here. --Robert Burrow

Customer Reviews

Wonderful Follow-up
This album with all its vibrant colour and form, with James Mercer's wonderful voice and moments jumping from gentle to outright hedonistic and flagrant is so very different to Oh, Inverted World. Its openness, its lyrical content, and the wild and exciting turn it takes from their debut is enough to ensure repeated listens. Intelligent, thoughtful yet youthful and carefree at the same time this album is a bundle of good things and I would urge anyone who hasn't listened to take a moment to listen. This is their most exceptional release so far (and I consider their latest release into the calculation) and at least for moments as incomparable as Gone for Good, an acoustic piece written about waiting around then moving on- for good, it is such a worthwhile visit.

indescribable
The adjectives required to describe this album simply don't exist. To award five stars is an insult. I have never heard anything like it in the 48 years of my existence. Absolute perfection.

Mercer's Masterpiece
The Shins. A band that will hopefully release many albums over the years, some will I've no doubt turn out to be interesting, breaking new ground wherever the jog button lands and some maybe less inspiring (dread the thought!) But it is quite clear to this reviewer that this unashamedly colourful yet subtle record is the early classic to be grouped in with other records of this calibre. "This years Model", "The Stone Roses", "Radiator" etc All lay the same unfortunate burden on the artist that smirks 'This may well be as good as it gets mate, don't expect something this good in 20 years time!' Cynical though it may seem, songs like 'Pink Bullets' and 'Those to Come' are so haunting and effortlessly uninhibited that I can't help but crave this quality of song writing for the rest of the bands career, however unrealistic that may seem. Within a mere 33 minutes the album delivers everything from dense cryptic imagery that baffles and astonishes ('all this way before murder was cool.' from Pink Bullets) to melodies of such warmth and grace they will have you smiling as though you had just heard Revolver with fresh ears. When Mercer sings "my heads like a kite when such a creature I sight!' you can almost hear the entire population of shy males in the world rejoicing in approval as it is played and sung with such frantic bite and conviction. The excitement levels reach delirious heights when halfway through `Fighting in a Sack' comes a harmonica solo that makes you want to dance like your in a pit of multicoloured rubber balls at the local adventure playground, it's THAT joyful and unconstrained. A stark musical contrast would be the contemplative, highly wordy (a word that could describe most of what's here) Saint Simon, a song that strives to never back down from the 'pretence' that has been hurled in its composer's direction. A juxtaposing theme seems to develop and invite you in with repeated listens. Most of the songs on Chutes Too Narrow exude a stubborn intensity where feelings or loss and nostalgia (Bullets) are just as violently shunned aside by a thrashy punk rock vigour (Kissing the Lipless, Sack - the later sounding like The Beach Boys on speed) Like many songwriters, Mercer seems to exorcise his (very warped) demons through his craft. But there is no new age 'heart on sleeve' whining to be found here and he comes out literally fighting and daring you to question his logic. On the jump-start Live favourite 'So Says I' he professes that WE ARE A BRUTAL KIND, incapable of saving our own lives, the childish, almost throwaway nature of the melody appropriately fitting this audacious statement. This line is perfectly balanced with James Mercer's 'laugh out load' observation that our prayers to dust sprinkling angels in times of darkness are just we silly humans having `conversations' with ourselves. Brilliant, it had me tingling with self-righteousness but cackling like a hyena at his honesty.
I am still discovering why this record leaves me so breathless and envious of such young wisdom put to such gorgeous pop music. The production is raw, deceptively simple and the songs create perfect quiet/load equilibrium throughout making this an effortlessly sequenced album. The Shins are unique in their approach. In years to come, it won't be the Keiser Chiefs, The Klaxons or even Muse that will stand the test of time for doing something different, it'll be this band with this seamless record at the top of the list. They dare to be weird and different but do it with soul and intelligence. After all, it was always the strange guy at school who grew to be the most successful and ended up with the most beautiful girl, this record is no different. Full of hope and above all FIGHT!