The Shins - Heartworms

Drowned In Sound 80

Mercer has long been able to strike that delicate balance between composing complex yet lucid lyrical arrangements to match The Shins’ lush instrumentation, prime examples being his masterstrokes “'Caring Is Creepy' and 'Simple Song'. Heartworms however exhibits a more stripped-down, homespun approach in most areas, allowing Mercer expansive space to really lean into the diverse sounds and let his vocals soar. What results is what fans have come to expect of a Shins’ release - tight, well-layered, and high-calibre indie pop designed to intrigue those very same people waiting patiently between hibernation periods. In short, the time off once again proves useful, with the band issuing one of its strongest releases with Heartworms.

With Mercer handling the production, his vocals seem more attuned to the backdrop instrumentation than ever before. There are few examples better than 'Name For You', which builds on a steady Jon Sortland backbeat that blossoms into a sprawling, harmonious chorus. 'Cherry Hearts' is a lot more stratified, with warbled synths gliding the way for an exhilarating finale. Mercer delivers one of his most animated performances, almost wailing his intent with soaring vocal acrobatics that are his custom. The crawling 'Fantasy Island; is less of an instrumental potpourri but delivers nonetheless. A flurry of synths impregnates the chorus while Mercer furnishes the palate with plush and dreamlike vocals.

As a staple of Mercer’s repertoire, he often goes for experimental undertakings without straying too far from his time-tested formula. The Shins’ sound is one of the most luscious in the indie universe, and Mercer’s sonic tinkering often amounts to substantial transmutations without ever feeling like he's strayed that far from his early Beatles-like rhythms and ambrosial singalong lyrics. He goes for the bare necessities on 'Mildenhall', which sort of sounds like a catchy, slow country-rock tune full of delicate textures as Mercer gives the audience a scope of his teenage years. An absorbing combination up-tempo guitar and keyboardist Richard Swift’s off-the-cuff fingerwork permeate 'Half a Million', where Mercer gradually elevates his pitch to a satisfying howl on one of the definite highlights of the album. A late cloudburst of synths toward the song’s waning moments only augments the appeal.

'Dead Alive', originally released as a single on Halloween, is the most outright example of Mercer’s unorthodox composition style; a man with a ceaseless desire to keep fans on their toes. Yuuki Matthews provides a prominent bassline that sets the ambience of this equal parts funky and eerie-sounding tune. Interspersed between Mercer’s wayfaring vocals are splashes of sound that borders on the supernatural. 'So Now What', produced by Swift, has a rich, sensuous footing, which Mercer croons in an ethereal fashion as he contemplates how to handle a former flame.

Throughout Heartworms, Mercer and company prove that their sparse output is well worth the wait. The totality of the record is enough to engulf listeners in myriad textures accomplished via sound and vision. Mercer is not only a dynamic songwriter but producer as well, constantly exploring new, diverse methods to keep ears glued. His antenna to fan expectations for the familiar as well as the unforeseen is rivalled by a precious few in the indie rock scene. To quote one the band’s staples, “it’s a luscious mix of words and tricks.”

Pitchfork 76

Dismantling the old Shins lineup must have been a bittersweet trade-off for James Mercer. On one hand, it freed him from the interpersonal conflicts inherent in running a band like a democracy, which surely was a relief to a songwriter who never prided himself on his people skills. But it also placed a weight on his shoulders. The sole burden of the band’s music and image now falls squarely on Mercer, including formalities that never seemed to come to him as easy to him as the songs did. During the band’s mid-’00s peak, for instance, Mercer often positioned himself toward the side of stage in concert, happily outsourcing traditional frontman duties like joking and bantering to his gregarious sideman Marty Crandall.

We can’t know whether Mercer laid off his bandmates for creative reasons, as he’s judiciously insisted, or if Crandall’s arrest for domestic assault left him no choice. Either way, he no longer has a real band to help him carry the load, and it takes a toll on him. While the Shins’ music hasn’t changed markedly since that purge in 2008, its image has. The press photos tell the whole story. Remember those old pics of colorful indie dudes horsing around? They’ve been replaced by shots of a lone, forlorn middle aged guy, trying and utterly failing to look like he’s enjoying himself. The songwriters Mercer most looks up to—icons like Morrissey, Ian McCulloch, Lennon and McCartney—were stars born for the stage, but Mercer never shared their comfort with the limelight. In an interview with NME this winter, he relayed these pressures. “It comes at weird moments in life,” he explained. “Like we went for this big meal the other night because the Shins are releasing a new record, and then I realized that it’s just me in the Shins so all those people were there for me.”

That may be why, for his 2012 Shins reboot Port of Morrow, he created a sort of shadow band, inviting guests like Janet Weiss, Joe Plummer, and Eric Johnson to help carry the weight. As if to suggest that the Shins were still a band, Mercer posed in promo photos with his touring lineup. Heartworms, however, is the first album where he fully embraces the reality that he is the Shins. Self-produced and recorded with a smaller cast than its predecessor, it’s the most hermetic LP he’s released since 2001’s Oh, Inverted World, the last album he recorded himself. At times it overtly calls back to that debut. With its psychedelic patter, “Dead Alive” is an almost direct sequel to “One by One All Day,” drawing out that song’s reverb-soaked outro into its own romp, like some kind of self-written fan fiction.

For as openly as Mercer discusses his anxiety (he dedicates Heartworms’s final song, “The Fear,” to it), he still adheres to a disciplined, “never let them see you sweat” approach in the studio. He creates the illusion that songs come to him quickly, as if pulled from thin air, even if the five year gaps between the last few Shins albums argue otherwise. His gift for making fussy arrangements seem effortless remains unparalleled. Heartworms’ chipper title track is all weightless wonder, as free and euphoric as anything on Inverted World. Opener “Name for You,” a sweetly encouraging piece written for his three daughters, plays as if he raced to the studio to record it while it was still fresh in his mind. And the most Chutes Too Narrow-esque number, “Mildenhall,” shares the same live looseness as that album’s country tunes. An unabashedly autobiographical origin story, it details Mercer’s evolution from military brat to indie rocker: A classmate passes him a Jesus and Mary Chain cassette; he starts fiddling with his dad’s guitar; his dad teaches him some simple chords and, yada yada yada, “that’s how we get to where we are now.”

There’s often been a tension, albeit only a mild one, between Mercer’s classicist pop impulses and his more progressive leanings, and some of that creeps in here, too. The nervy, acid-washed “Painting a Hole” plays like something Kevin Barnes might concoct after several sunless days sequestered in a studio—its groove is heavier and nastier than any Danger Mouse has cooked up for him in Broken Bells. “Cherry Hearts” and “Fantasy Island” each call attention to themselves with grimy keyboard tones and deep, almost 808-esque low ends. In the past, Mercer has tripped over these kinds of experiments (“Sea Legs” doesn’t feel any less clumsy today than it did a decade ago), but here he lands them with the confidence of an old pro aware of his limitations.

Like many of the indie bands from his era, including fellow pop true believers the New Pornographers and Death Cab for Cutie—one of the few other acts from the mid-’00s indie boom still on a major label—Mercer has survived by staying the course. He has largely resisted trends or any temptation to drift too far from his established sweet spot. The thrill of discovery may be gone—really, it disappeared with Wincing the Night Away—yet it’s remarkable how little rust he’s showing. And although Heartworms never quite conjures the magic of those first couple Shins albums, it’s further proof that they weren’t a fluke. This guy always did, and still does, know how to write a song that sticks.

The Guardian 60

(Aural Apothecary/Columbia)

In the years since their surge of popularity in the early noughties, the Shins have more or less been whittled down to a James Mercer solo project. This record, his first in five years, certainly has the markings of a personal voyage. As well as being self-produced, it is full of candid, heartfelt anecdotes mixed with committee-free experimentation. New wave influences ripple throughout; Rubber Ballz has psychedelic qualities; Mildenhall is an Americana track that recalls his teen years in the UK and starting to discover music; the mechanical vocals in the verse of Cherry Hearts sound as if he’s channelling a robot. Name for You – inspired by his three daughters – finds him in paternal mode, giving a pep talk: “They’re just afraid of you speaking your mind.” Heartworms is an album of tinkering and pootling, the sound of a man reminiscing on life, referencing his favourite records – less rock star, more bloke living out his hobby from the comfort of a suburban garage.