Death Cab For Cutie has been around for a while, they're the leading band on Barsuk Records. Not long ago they were topping the college and indie charts, poised to cross-over to mainstream rock with their latest album, "The Photo Album". But the leap was never taken, and Death Cab still resides firmly in the underground.
The repetition and almost bizarre and kooky guitar chords can lull you into thinking Death Cab is one of those comfortable, great background music, listen to them while chilling in your room kind of bands. But heed this now, you may be listening along, grooving to the low key soft rock beauty, when Death Cab will shift into a higher gear, like a mellow, long suffering friend who's finally had enough. But it's still in character, it's the same band, it's the same friend, as before. This album holds more of those moments than most of Death Cab's previous stuff, but they're still not a heavy rock band.
The low piano tones on songs like "Information Travels Faster" give an ominous and inevitable tone, deepening the sound past simple rock. The drums are a visible backbone of the music, contributing not only rhythm but something of the melody as well. The melodies and harmonies blend into one another, layering simplicity on simplicity and making it one net of amazing music.
Lyrically, Death Cab follows two veins. One, a nebulous, undecodable, but blunt style that provides abstract phrases that will roll around in your head as if they were part of the music itself. And two, an articulate, eloquent, in your face poetry that makes you want to cry and applaud at the same time, for the terrible sentiments it relates and the amazing way it's related. In songs like "Why You'd Want To Live Here" (I can almost see a skyline through a thickening cloud of egos) about L.A. and "Styrofoam Plates" (It's no stretch to say you were not quite a father but a donor of seed to a poor single mother) about the author's father, we are faced with this stellar writing. While Death Cab's music is gorgeous, the lyrics are what bring it all home.
A
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