Pitchfork

The Shins might've pushed their album back until January, but they recently revealed some details to Billboard.com. In a move uncomfortably reminiscent of Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping", the Shins have titled their upcoming Sub Pop release Wincing the Night Away. Yeah...probably from getting knocked down over and over again.

Save some backing vocals, Wincing is completely finished and ready for mixing in Portland, Billboard reports. The album will likely feature ten full songs and an intro track, including "Phantom Limb" ("a hypothetical, fictional account of a young, lesbian couple in high school dealing with the shitty small town they live in," frontman James Mercer told Billboard), "Red Rabbits" ("a strange psychedelic piano number with this really tweaked out sound"), "Sea Legs", "Spelling Lessons", "Spilled Needles", and "A Comet Appears".

Wincing the Night Away is the Shins' final album under contract to Sub Pop, and the band is well aware. "We really like the more creative sort of ways people have been putting out their records lately," Mercer said. "People are owning their own masters and having distribution deals. That's real attractive. It's an expensive business. It's probably more expensive for the artists than anyone else." Uh oh-- trouble in paradise?

The Shins have a few dates lined up for next month, though they plan to hold off on any sort of mega-tour until the album's release in 2007.

Dates:

09-15 Austin, TX - Stubb's (Austin City Limits afterparty)
09-16 Austin, TX - Austin City Limits
09-30 Mountain View, CA - Shoreline Amphitheater (Download Festival)
11-02 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom (Sub Pop CMJ showcase)