The ShinsTitle: Wincing the Night AwayLabel: Sub Pop RecordsGenre: Indie RockReleased: 2007Rating: * * 1/2

The Shins are an interesting outfit.

Up until now, the band managed to capture the heart of every 20-something with a heart on his or her sleeve and maybe a tattoo, but it has somehow managed to stay under the ever-fickle mainstream radar. And The Shins’ gem of a second album had already been out for three years, but when the baby-faced Natalie “It will change your life” Portman proclaimed “New Slang” the emo anthem of the new millennium, it suddenly seemed that the cool thing to do was listen to The Shins.

So with name-dropping in one of the best movies of our generation and a big marketing campaign from the band’s label Sub Pop Records, The Shins are poised to take over the world, gain mainstream acceptance as the best indie-rock band out there and be on the lips of every 13-year-old girl with MTV on the tube, right? Wrong. If anything they’ve just gotten weirder. And is that necessarily bad? Not entirely.

The stoned Beach Boys sound from their previous records makes an appearance, though not as prevalent as before.

“Sleeping Lessons” starts timidly before ramping up into the danceable Shins we know and love. In fact, the first half of the album sounds remarkably like a blend of Chutes Too Narrow and Oh, Inverted World.

“Phantom Limb” tries to be Wincing’s “New Slang,” while “Sea Legs,” perhaps the album’s best, has almost a hip-hop like beat with its stuttering guitars and swirling synths.

James Mercer and gang spent considerably more time in the studio with this album, and it shows with numerous effects, layering and unusual instruments shown by the violin solo at the end of the torchy “Red Rabbits.”

“Split Needles” and “Girl Sailor” both serve to keep the proverbial ball rolling before “A Comet Appears” putters out and finishes the record on a meek note — a fitting close.

Don’t go into Wincing expecting the revelry of Chutes Too Narrow or even the haunting melodies from Oh, Inverted World. The Shins’ latest just floats somewhere in the nebulous in between, and that is where it ultimately doesn’t satisfy.