Indie cards on the table, guys- I’ve never been a diehard Shins fan. Sure, I can recognise Chutes Too Narrow’s melodic mastery and Oh, Inverted World’s Seattle-on-a-rare-sunny-day good vibes but I’ve just never had the urge to tell JD from Scrubs that ‘New Slang’ would change his life. It’s not them, it’s me- it just seemed to be lacking something I was looking for.

Perhaps it was during his Broken Bells collaboration with Danger Mouse that James Mercer discovered an extra element, because Port of Morrow is The Shins’ fullest, most polychrome and multifaceted collection to date and an early contender for record of the year.

Mercer has always harboured a love for pop music in his work, but where previously his odes were indebted to Brian and Dennis Wilson, Port of Morrow features electronic buzz, guitar fuzz and contemporary pop influences.

On ‘40 Mark Strasse’ – the standout of the album’s third act surge- Mercer mixes the florid lyrics of his earlier work with crooning R&B-tinged vocals and synths pilfered from 1983. The ‘homemade’ façade of the band’s previous work is gone; enter the serene soundscapes of the closing title track, a slow-burning, piano-driven lament whose layered vocals ebb, flow and help drift the listener out into the endless ersatz ocean Mercer has constructed that one simply wants to plummet into.

It’s not a complete reinvention for the band, they’ve just added more hues to their palette. Mercer’s dreamy, astral lyrics still lilt the listener - on ‘September’ he recalls “telling stories of our possible lives and love is the ink in the well where her body writes.” It’s probably the track most similar to their back catalogue, but still features some whirring, disorientating background noise which gives the track an added dimension.

‘Simple Song,’ despite its noodling guitars, layered vocals and prog-rock sensibilities, still has The Shins’ joie de vivre at heart. It’s this breeziness that carries the superb, horn-accompanied nostalgia ‘Fall of ’82,’ which manages to be both a lament and an extraordinary exultation. The band sound grander than ever but without losing the down-to-earth touch that won them the ears of millions.

It’s not the record all of The Shins’ fans probably wanted, maybe it’s one some even feared, but Port of Morrow might be the band’s best record to date. It manages to be slightly avant-garde but still slick, toying with tropes and pushing their boundaries as far as possible. Where Port of Morrow differs from its predecessors is how utterly unpredictable it is: its landscape is dotted with turns and ravines, meaning it could go in absolutely any direction at any time.

No longer shackled by an idea of what the band ‘should’ sound like, Mercer has taken a sledgehammer to the walls of their sound: it’s now eerie and ethereal, earnest and experimental.

The Shins are dead, long live The Shins.