“You gotta hear this one song, it’ll change your life, I swear”

Yes, perhaps the most ridiculous line from one of the more self-indulgently obnoxious movies of recent memory (Garden State) was about the band of today’s beard- lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter James Mercer of The Shins. And though the statement is hyperbole uttered by a kiddie-pool depth character in the movie, the sentiment certainly isn’t far off base, as the consistently bearded Mercer has been putting out some of this generation’s finest pop for over a decade.