Broken Bells

Shins. Danger Mouse. Ring any Bells?

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More About

• James Mercer
• Broken Bells
• Danger Mouse
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media
• Hip-Hop and Rap

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Hip-hop producer and Gnarls Barkley member Danger Mouse may be known for dabbling with everyone from Gorillaz's Damon Albarn to the late Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. But his partner in Broken Bells, James Mercer of the Shins, isn't as notoriously adventurous. Danger Mouse outs Mercer's latent experimentalism in Broken Bells' self-titled debut, a disc that saw Mercer stretch his helium-fueled, Beach Boys-esque vocals into everything from icy falsetto to funk. It's a brooding, slick and, at times, even sexy disc — again, not what the Shins are necessarily known for — but it seems that Mercer is using Broken Bells as beat-heavy rebound therapy since the last lineup of the Shins disintegrated in 2008. Shins shows were always an opportunity to kind of bob your head and bounce in place; with Broken Bells, though, Mercer and Danger Mouse are fully expecting you to dance.