The Shins were the musical guests on SNL last night in support of their fine new album, Port of Morrow.  We’re happy to report they soundly overcame the SNL musical hex.  Check out their performances below, replete with back-up singers, of Simple Song and It’s Only Life off of Port of Morrow.  Leader James Mercer was in fine vocal form throughout, even dropping down briefly (at minute 3:00 on Simple Song) into “human.”  Mercer also seems to have dropped his lyrics down to a discernible sub-Jabberwocky compared to prior albums.  The newly-added Jessica Dobson (of Deep Sea Diver) gave her best St. Vincent-simulacrum in both guise and guitar-playing (a compliment we assure you).  Though the band fared far better than other recent SNL musical guests, once again the SNL sound was suspect on Simple Song, with the other vocalists’ vocals mixed way too low.  Thankfully the sound was fixed by the time the band came back for It’s Only Life, with the background vocals sounding simply charming.   Check ’em both below courtesy of the Audio Perv.