• Record Label: Sub Pop
  • Release Date: Jan 23, 2007
User Score
8.2

Universal acclaim- based on 188 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Negative: 10 out of 188

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  1. JSheets
    Mar 19, 2007
    1
    pass this one up. A complete and total waste of time. The entire album sounds the same.
  2. KurtCobain
    Jan 22, 2007
    0
    The Shins give pop music a bad name. Go by Deerhoof's new album intead of this easy listening garbage.
  3. ToddW
    Jan 26, 2007
    3
    One can practically hear James Mercer pleading with the soccer moms to make his band the Death Cab or Coldplay of 2007. And guess what? They will be. Everything that made Oh, Inverted World and Chutes Too Narrow absolutely brilliant, transcedant pop music has been sanitized and streamlined. Remember the first time you heard "Saint Simon," with that angelic bridge that came out of nowhere? One can practically hear James Mercer pleading with the soccer moms to make his band the Death Cab or Coldplay of 2007. And guess what? They will be. Everything that made Oh, Inverted World and Chutes Too Narrow absolutely brilliant, transcedant pop music has been sanitized and streamlined. Remember the first time you heard "Saint Simon," with that angelic bridge that came out of nowhere? Or the first time you followed along with Oh, Inverted World's lyric sheet and had to scrape your jaw off the floor? Don't be expecting any of that on Wincing. Come to think of it, that's about all you can expect if you've been a pre-Garden State fan. The unpredicatable twists and turns? Gone. The brilliant countermelodies? Left behind. Mercer's deceptively insightful lyrics? Neither deceptive nor insightful. The verse-chorus-verse structure? Here in spades. So run out to your local Barnes and Noble, soccer moms! Answer Mercer's pleas! This is the jam you can play for your kids on the way to the games to show them that you're still "happening." Expand
  4. BillyG
    Jan 23, 2007
    2
    While this album has good parts to it, the rest is a befuddled mess. The Shins get good ratings because people are under the impression that they are supposed to love the Shins, even when they are shitting in your ears.
  5. GeorgeC.
    Feb 7, 2008
    2
    This is a plea to stand-in guitarist Eric Johnson. Please Eric... please resurrect Fruit Bats before these douchebags end up dragging you and your creativity into the turd basket with them, and before Marty tries to beat up your girlfriend.
  6. DrunkenMaster
    Jan 23, 2007
    2
    Overrated whitebread whining for spoiled middleclass kids just a bit too old to be "emo".
  7. LoganM
    Feb 12, 2007
    0
    what a dissapointment!!! it sucks so bad, don't buy this unless you want to waste your money on a cheap album
  8. jeffs
    Jan 22, 2007
    2
    Following the trajectory of Coldplay and Death Cab For Cutie, the Shins have gone from heroes to zeroes in two albums. Bravo.
Metascore
79

Generally favorable reviews - based on 37 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 31 out of 37
  2. Negative: 0 out of 37
  1. Wincing is neither the clever genre recombinant exercise of their second album nor is it the perfect little self-contained universe of their debut. This is not the Shins' best album; it's their growing pains third record.
  2. I usually find Shins albums grow on me slowly but surely yet after a good dozen plays I feel my faith isn't being repaid this time, and as a fan that's frustrating.
  3. Wincing the Night Away feels labored. Gracefully realized though it is, you can hear the three-plus years Mercer spent pondering how to satisfy the expectations his surprise classic had created -- and also how to remain fresh and true to himself.