''Heartworms'' is the fifth studio album by American
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
band
The Shins
The Shins is an American indie rock band formed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1996. The band is the project of singer-songwriter James Mercer, who has served as the band's sole constant member throughout numerous line-up changes. The band's cu ...
, released by
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...
on March 10, 2017—the band's first studio album in five years. It was produced by
James Mercer,
with the exception of "So Now What", which was produced by former band member
Richard Swift.
The
album art
An album cover (also referred to as album art) is the front packaging art of a commercially released studio album or other audio recordings. The term can refer to either the printed paperboard covers typically used to package sets of and 78-rpm ...
is based on the Japanese
Ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...
triptych ''
Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre
''Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre'' or ''Mitsukuni Defying the Skeleton Spectre Invoked by Princess Takiyasha'' ( ja, 相馬の古内裏 妖怪がしゃどくろと戦う大宅太郎光圀) is an ukiyo-e woodblock triptych by Japanes ...
''.
Reception
Overall, ''Heartworms'' received positive reviews from critics. On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a
normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, it has an
average
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...
score of 73, based on twenty reviews.
Accolades
Track listing
Personnel
Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.
[''Heartworms'' (booklet). The Shins. Columbia. 2017. 88985 41202 2]
The Shins
*
James Mercer – vocals, guitar (all tracks); bass (1, 2, 7–9, 11), synthesizers (3, 4, 6, 7), percussion (5, 8),
chord organ
Chord organ is a kind of home organ that has a single short keyboard and a set of chord buttons, enabling the musician to play a melody or lead with one hand and accompanying chords with the other, like the accordion with a set of chord button ...
(5, 11), ukulele, harmonica (11)
*
Joe Plummer
Joseph E. Plummer is an American drummer from Portland, Oregon. From 2004 to 2012 Plummer was a percussionist and drummer for the indie rock band Modest Mouse and performed on their album, '' We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank''.
Before ...
– drums (1, 4, 6–10)
* Yuuki Matthews – synthesizers (1–9, 11), drums (3), percussion (3, 5, 6), bass (4, 6, 10)
*
Mark Watrous
Mark Watrous is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and graphic/video artist from Richland, Washington. He is best known as a former member of the band Gosling (also known as Loudermilk). Watrous is currently a member of Earl Burrows and ...
– guitar (1, 4, 8), piano (1, 8, 9), strings (4, 11),
kalimba
Mbira ( ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and pl ...
(4), bass synth (5), castanets (6)
*
Jon Sortland
Jon Sortland (born September 12, 1973) is an American musician, record producer and video director, currently playing the drums for indie rock band The Shins. Sortland has also played drums, bass, keyboards and backing vocals in the band Broken ...
– drums (2)
*
Richard Swift – synthesizers,
Mellotron
The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...
(4, 6, 10); drums (4), percussion (4, 10)
Additional musicians
*
Chris Funk
Christopher Funk (born November 28, 1971) is an American musician and multi-instrumentalist best known as a member of the Portland, Oregon, indie rock band The Decemberists. He plays guitar, pedal steel, piano, violin, dobro, hurdy-gurdy, mandol ...
– guitar, dulcimer (2); baritone guitar (11)
* Steve Drizos – percussion (2)
Technical
* James Mercer – production (1–9, 11)
* Richard Swift – production (10)
* Yuuki Matthews – mixing
* Brian Lucey – mastering
* Jacob Escobedo – artwork, design
Charts
''The Worm's Heart''
In December 2017, the band announced that a "flipped" version of ''Heartworms'' would be released on January 19, 2018. Titled ''The Worm's Heart'', the follow-up album contains the same songs as ''Heartworms'', but reinterpreted and presented in reverse-order.
According to Mercer, slow songs were played faster, quiet songs louder, and vice versa.
Track listing
Charts
References
{{Authority control
2017 albums
Columbia Records albums
The Shins albums