It's a luscious mix of words and tricks

Got the new Shins album yesterday. I've been a fan since I bought "Oh, Inverted World" the summer before I went to Japan, and since then they've always been associated in my mind with that time and settling into my year abroad. The new album, "Wincing the Night Away", is just as good - a subtle album, but a grower. As well as writing some of the catchiest indie-pop tunes since the Housemartins, the Shins' music also features completely nonsensical lyrics. Which leads to some embrassing situations at times, where I have to stop myself singing about "the sacred lambs of Sunday ham" or some such gibberish in public.