Broken Bells – Broken Bells (2010)

In the mid-00's, The Shins was one of my favourite bands. Their melodies were absolutely amazing and I really liked James Mercer's vocals. In 2010 James Mercer made this album with Danger Mouse and I was really excited about it. When the album was actually released, it became somewhat clear that this wasn't as good as The Shins albums. The songs had more electronic sounds and more varied instrumentation, but the songs didn't have similar hooks as the songs on The Shins albums. Now, later on when I think about it, this album actually sounds better than The Shins albums that came later on. It was just that this was the first album by James Mercer that let me down a bit. I'm not saying this is not a good album, because it is very enjoyable. I'm just saying that my expectations were really high and this didn't really meet them.



I had never had the chance to see The Shins live, because they never toured in Finland. So, when it was announced that Broken Bells was going to perform at the Flow festival in Helsinki, I was ecstatic. The gig turned out to be quite disappointing. They didn't play any Shins songs and James Mercer wasn't really performing the songs. He was merely singing and playing them but there didn't seem to be any emotion there. Fortunately, I got to correct this about a year ago when I finally got to see The Shins live here in London. Even though I really didn't care about their latest album, their gig was fantastic and full of old hit songs. Broken Bells made another album later on as well, but that was even more boring than this one.

I've badmouthed this album quite a lot already and I don't think I'm being completely fair by doing this. I truly like some of the songs on this album. It opens with Nintendo-style electronic sounds which turn into the song The High Road. There are some other space sounds in the song as well. My favourite part is the part in the end where the vocals intertwine beautifully. The second song Vaporize is one of my favourite songs on this album. It has a bit of that Shins magic in it. Firstly, it starts with just an acoustic guitar and the melodies are quite interesting. Your Head Is On Fire represents the neo-psychedelia style but the song itself is not very interesting as the sounds take most of the attention. The Ghost Inside is really more of a rhythmic than a melodic song and it reminds me of Spoon. Sailing to Nowhere has some retro radio frequency sounds and blinking organ sounds that remind me of Eels a little bit. October has some great rhythmic groove and interesting, slightly darker melodies. The last two songs on the album are surprisingly the best ones. Mongrel Heart has a great melody that kind of reminds me of Spaghetti Western soundtracks by Ennio Morricone in a strange psychedelic kind of way. The Mall & Misery is has some great sharp indie rock guitars and dark melodies.

The Ghost Inside has a great music video of a woman in space. This video looks really expensive and I feel like a lot of effort has been put into it. That reflects my feeling about this album in general. A lot of thought has gone to sounds and production, but that hasn't been just a positive thing, since the quality of songwriting isn't quite as impressive as it was on The Shins albums before. It's still a real pleasure watching music videos looking this great.

When I'm listening to this album now, it all sounds very nice and good, but I can't shake the memory of disappointment I had when this album originally came out. I hope some of you can listen to this album and appreciate it as what it is without comparing to early Shins albums.

Listen to the album on Spotify.