Some may claim that they would like The Shins more if they didn’t know it was The Shins, and some may pretend to not like Gnarls Barkley at all, yet while at the same time of their supposed claim you might find this so-called pretender dancing and even singing along with Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo’s music as “Crazy” is unleashed in the basement of the cool girl’s party. So if you fall into either one of these categories or don’t really know what I’m talking about in the first place then there’s no need to worry, because the new collaboration of Broken Bells and their self-titled album has finally arrived. This duo consists of The Shins’ front man James Mercer and Danger Mouse (a.k.a. Brian Burton). An album that can deliver the fun and sorrow filled tunes from The Shins and bring the intrinsic and eclectic fun from the one half of Gnarls Barkley.
It begins with their single “The High Road,” which creepily yet poetically gears the album toward the entrancing side of things, otherwise known as pop, but good pop music. It’s very catchy and after hearing the warbling twangs of Mercer’s voice rolling from one song to the next you can hear the Shin-sier side of things but almost with a cool funk to it, which means that Danger Mouse is doing his job. And he’s doing an excellent job. Brian, if I may call him Brian, does fantastic work with his multi-instrumental talents and skills as a producer. (Do producers do things still?)
As a whole the album works very well and can become quite addicting after a few listens. So now you don’t have to be ashamed of singing in the cool girl’s basement to the new product of Danger Mouse and you can tell you’re friends that you actually like Broken Bells for who they are. All is well and if you haven’t seen the session video for their first single “The High Road” posted earlier, do so now! Or in the meantime check out the creepy and mesmerizing music video for the single below:

Broken Bells is out now via Columbia Records.

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