Do you remember 2004? How we were in middle school, and we ironically wore New Kids on the Block t-shirts with our Converse sneakers? And how we thought Zach Braff was the coolest, and we pretended to like “Garden State” way more than we actually did? How we were trying so very hard? And how the Shins were our favorite band?

The Shins-Zach Braff association is incredibly strong for me; I can’t think of one without the other. Maybe it’s just because I loved them both at the same time. Maybe it’s because Braff gave The Shins their big break by having Natalie Portman call the band life-changing in “Garden State,” and featuring them on the film’s Grammy-winning soundtrack album.

But I think it’s more than that. I’m convinced that the Shins are the musical embodiment of Zach Braff. Maybe I should be kinder to The Shins—perhaps Zach Braff is the human embodiment of their music. They’re attractively nerdy, and a hair’s breadth to the left of the mainstream, accessible to anyone and everyone but still just a bit hip. And now we’ve basically forgotten them both, relics of an era of trucker hats and high tops. Even worse, when we do remember them, our nostalgic fondness is tinged with embarrassment. It’s not necessarily Zach Braff or The Shins that are embarrassing—it’s who we were when we loved them: “I can’t believe I listened to ‘Chutes Too Narrow’ every single day,” and “Why did I buy all those Scrubs DVD box sets?”

But Shins’ singer and songwriter James Mercer seems determined not to be relegated to yesteryear: he tries his best to bring his band into this decade on “Port of Morrow.” They’re certainly not The Shins we remember—Mercer is the only original member left, having fired everyone else—but the songs are mostly amazingly unchanged. There is a new coat of high-gloss finish and touches of jarringly misplaced electronic production, but Mercer’s songs are as upbeat, catchy, and quirky as ever. Single “Simple Song” is everything you always loved about The Shins, propelled by a Van Halen-esque hook that manages to come entirely out of left field and yet sounds completely natural. “It’s Only Life” brims over with good-natured angst. A visual analog that comes to my mind is Zach Braff standing in the rain looking affectedly disaffected and geeky-hot, á la “Garden State.” But “Port of Morrow” seems to fall to pieces in its second half, or perhaps its “mile wide, inch deep” charm begins to wear thin. On “Fall of ’82,” Mercer adds a horns section and actually tries to be funky, but succeeds only in making the world cringe.

The irony of the title of “Port of Morrow” will be missed by no one: this band, so thoroughly associated with the past, calls us to look to the future while they struggle to be in step with the present. The Shins sound like a band out of step with time; so much has changed in the past eight years. The White Stripes have broken up. “TRL” was cancelled. Zooey Deschanel took quirkiness and ruined it for everyone. And of course, Zach Braff has disappeared. “Port of Morrow” is so utterly Shins, so utterly 2004, that the synths and super-shiny production sound incredibly try-hard. Mercer is a man with one foot still in the past. Hopefully, he’ll catch up soon.