An airy feel runs through the album, from "Girl on the Wing"'s bird imagery and pristine harmonies to "Girl Inform Me"'s giddiness to "One by One All Day"'s psychedelic coda.
"Weird Divide" is a backyard Pet Sounds its winding melody channels that point in the summer when it's too hot to care much about anything, punctuating it with percussion that evokes incessant sprinklers. More importantly, all of Oh, Inverted World's songs hang together in an immensely satisfying way. "Know Your Onion" practically jumps out of its skin, bursting with British Invasion riffs and angst that goes way beyond adolescence "New Slang" tempers a yearning that curdles into bitterness with a beautiful melody and a ghostly falsetto coda. And, of course, just how good the album's songs are can't be overlooked. This may not be the most innovative sound, but it makes Mercer's boy-meets-girl, boy-runs-away, boy-comes-back, girl-runs-away travails all the more familiar and relatable. Caring might be creepy, but it's hard to avoid the rest of Oh, Inverted World chronicles this post-ironic vulnerability, wrapping it in jangly guitar pop that echoes the Kinks, Zombies, and Beach Boys. Hyper-literate lyrics like "It's a luscious mix of words and tricks" suggest someone who's better with words than with feelings, yet Mercer's high, wavering tones - which are as awkward as they are beautiful - prove otherwise. The album's first song, "Caring Is Creepy," sums up the typical indie response to emotional situations with its title alone, but it also introduces James Mercer's delicate, dryly witty take on that attitude. Oh, Inverted World is the sound of realizing there's more to life than being a smart-aleck - but also not being ready to open up completely.
After the high irony of Pavement and other '90s standard bearers, indie rock began moving into more emotionally forthright territory. The Shins' first full-length is a definitive indie rock album of the 2000s not just because of its thoughtful, tuneful songs, but also because of the vivid portrait it painted of indie culture.