NAME: The ShinsPROGRESS REPORT: Writing songs for the follow-up to 2007's Wincing The Night Away. Working on a collaborative side-project."You go a year without playing and you think, maybe I can't do it anymore. Maybe I forgot how to do it. I don't know," says Shins frontman James Mercer. Worrying about "keeping our name out there," seems kind of ridiculous for the Shins, who added a second Terminal 5 show in NYC this month, after the first one sold out quickly. But maybe the new tour dates are the best way to figure out where his band's at right now. Two big changes will guide the direction of their next album--one is the band's new line up, which we showed you yesterday. Ron Lewis, from Grand Archive and the Fruit Bats, joins the band on bass, and Joe Plumber, from Modest Mouse and Black Heart Procession, has taken over for drummer Jesse Sandoval. The shakeup wasn't personal, it just ties to Mercer's goals for the new record. The two new tracks they debuted this tour -- "Double Bubble" and "The Rifle's Spiral," call for a beefier rhythm section: "[The songs are] just a bit more rhythmic. They're kind of about the percussion and stuff. One of them is really angular and chunky. It's jabs with chords instead of strumming," he says. "And then the other one is really rhythmic and has kind of a mod, new wave sound to it."Continue reading Progress Report: The Shins...