The Shins are a band from Albuquerque dedicated to making shaggy guitar rock that goes pop in pleasantly unexpected ways. Like Built To Spill’s Doug Marsch, Shins leader James Mercer could probably reel off Beatlesque hooks by the dozens and generate Brian Wilson–style good vibrations, but his devilishly catchy songs stir weird vintage synth sounds and exotically worded depictions of slacker-guy confusion into his recipe for indie rock. "Far below a furry moon our purposes crossed/The weird divide between our kinds," he sings on the lazily strummed and appropriately titled "The Weird Divide." But there’s nothing forced about the Shins’ idiosyncrasies. Indeed, Oh, Inverted World is as natural-sounding a pop odyssey as anything those ’60s acolytes in Apples in Stereo have put their name on.