Reviews

The reason for such a chance is down solely to their third album, Wincing The Night Away, a collection of delicious and delightful indie dishes, served up charmingly with a side order of interesting influences.

The Shins (c) Shirlaine Forrest

Tonight’s show swung heavily around that collection, which pleased one half of the assembled more than the other. Being on such a career cusp meant the Academy’s audience split into those who know their older stuff and those who have only just got on board the good ship Shins.

Such a fact led to lulls in the atmosphere when perfectly good songs, like the charming Know Your Onion, got an airing, as people waited for the next Wincing cut. Those lulls weren’t helped by The Shins’ somewhat sparse stagecraft. Natural charisma can only go so far when you are playing to a thousand people and it fell short on several occasions.

The Shins (c) Shirlaine Forrest

And the venue offered them no help. Visiting the Academy at the moment is like seeing a gig on a building site and despite the new roof and floor, there was a fuzzy edge to the sound that muffled the vocals to unintelligible levels.

So the highlights were inevitably Wincing songs. Special mentions go to a glowering Sleeping Lessons, which took up its opening role with genuine tense excitement; Turn On Me’s foot tapping jaunt; and a genuinely thrilling Sealegs, a song who’s tightrope walk between epic and brooding is only emboldened live.

It all made for an intriguing result. Are The Shins capable of making one giant leap into the mainstream (and do they even want to)? On tonight’s showing, the jury is still out. While they do have some amazing songs, they desperately need to improve their showmanship to entertain larger audiences with them.