In my opinion "Oh, Inverted World" is one of the definitive indie rock albums of the early 2000s and the Shins as one of the style's definitive bands. But it doesn't mean i'm going to like or must like all Shins releases. Today, i listened that great Inverted again, and yes it was great, never bores you. Gentle guitar melodies and Mercer's innocent vocal was still powerful. Yes while he's singing his well-writen lyrics, he's got lots of thought in his head, funny ones, kind ones, complex ones.
mp3: The Shins - New Slang
mp3: The Shins - Know Your Onion!

I guess I try to figure out what emotional meaning there is to the music that I've put together. And then hopefully there's something I've been thinking about or pondering, or something that happened to give me a subject to just start writing. There are a lot of different subjects I've been dealing with on the record, but one theme is that having convictions, having certitude, just leads to trouble. And if people simply allowed for the possibility that they were wrong-- if everybody did that-- there would probably never be another war. If you just did that one fucking thing. But of course it would require everyone doing that, but it's a funny idea, or an interesting thing to me at least-- that a simple little thing of just questioning yourself would save the world. You don't even need a new philosophy to explain the world. Just realize that you are who you are, that no god is telling you shit, that you're just doing your little mouse-brained attempt at discovery. James Mercer...And read recent The Shins Interview at Pitchfork.
I think you should take a look at the interview, which brings a bunch of intelligent idea about the band. As a mind, "Wincing the Night Away" touchs you again but still it has some kind of lack of melody, and melody is as important as meaning of the songs.