Indie-Easy-Listening-Background-Church-Organ-Strange-Singing-Fest 2004!
"Chutes Too Narrow", the second album offering from US's The Shins is a teacup ride of acoustic guitars, light distortion, and keyboards. But the fun doesn't end there, kids! Hillbilly music, otherwise known as Country and Western, also pokes its unusual head into this album, in addition to a multitude of instruments which the band members will no doubt be unable to play in a live situation. The album as a whole, however, does amazingly well as a pure piece of audible art, combining decent songwriting with influences from a range of styles dating back from decades past.
"Chutes Too Narrow" does have songs which will slowly bore into your head, with the intent to stay there for a few days, annoying you for countless hours with their soft acoustics and church organs, but no material here is really instantly catchy, and the whole album seems to be safe in the section where you place those albums which you play as background ambiance at parties and various other social events - be advised, however, playing this at funerals isn't recommended.
"Chutes Too Narrow" opens with a generic acoustic song, "Kissing the Lipless", which thankfully evolves into something a bit more interesting, inserting lightly distorted guitars which play double-stopped sliding riffs. After dying back down into simply James Russell Mercer's voice and his infamous acoustic guitar (infamous in that you'll be hearing it a lot on this album), we move onto the next song, "Mine's Not a High Horse". It moves much faster, as muted guitar hits combine with the drums to dictate a speedy pace - whilst synths and country and western-esque guitars provide the melodic backdrop for the vocals.
Beatles-esque lyrics feature in "So Says I", which is succeeded by "Young Pilgrims", and here lies the first true showing of the Shins' strange country influences, interlacing the vocals with clean guitar work. "Saint Simon" features next, showcasing slow ska chords, a piano and unusual, yet interesting backing vocals, which appear to have been stolen from a maiden sitting up in a castle back in the yonder years.
The rest of the album continues much in the same vein, adding church organs ("Pink Bullets"), along with a much more rocking song influenced by the dreaded country and western - "Turn a Square" - which is definately single material. The following track, "Gone For Good", digresses totally into a Dolly Parton mood with its slide guitar background. The final track, "Those To Come" is basically the generic acoustic song you thought "Kissing the Lipless" was going to be at the start of the album, and makes a peaceful interlude to this easy listening slash indie piece of work.