Death Cab for Cutie
http://www.barsuk.com/dcfc

styles: indie rock, indie pop
others: Bedhead, Built to Spill, Modest Mouse, 764 Hero, Elliott Smith

The Photo Album
Barsuk, 2001
rating: 7.7
reviewer: mr p

It's exciting to follow bands from album to album. Through these recordings, we can sometimes pick up on different periods in their lives. Death Cab for Cutie's latest effort The Photo Album is a prime example: Here we are left with an album that emits the often overlooked emotion, happiness. Of course, it's uncertain whether their intent was to provide a "happy" album, but it does provide an alternative to the melancholy essence of the albums of yesteryear.

The Photo Album says goodbye to the laid-back decorum of We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes, and more or less, continues surfing on light-hearted pop, especially evident on last year's Forbidden Love EP. Most of the songs have a similar upbeat drum style, coupled with chiming guitars and melodic vocals. The melodies on this album are so catchy that I can barely listen and type this review without stopping in failed attempts to imitate Ben Gibbard's voice. But where Forbidden Love mainly emphasizes melody, the songs on The Photo Album concentrate on intensity and vigor, as well as melody.

The style discrepancies between the three albums seem to have a lot to do with the drummer. Nathan Good provided the mechanical drumming on their debut album Something About Airplanes, giving the album a much needed edge. Good also played a couple songs for the follow-up We Have the Facts, but the other 8 songs saw drumming by Ben Gibbard (vocalist/songwriter/guitarist). Gibbard provided slow, simplistic grooves that drew a constant mood throughout. As for the The Photo Album, the established Michael Schorr injects his unique style to the formula, resulting in a different songwriting approach. Death Cab no longer need to rely on the guitars alone for dynamic shifts, the drums often carry the songs to heights that Death Cab have not previously been before.

Aside from the conventional rock instruments, Death Cab for Cutie also comes equipped with the good ol' ebony and ivory for this album, evident on "Debate Exposes Doubt", "I Was A Kaleidoscope", "Blacking Out the Friction", and "Information Travels Faster". The piano is never a standout element in the music, but it does provide the mid-tones between Chris' trebly guitars and Nick's low end bass, creating a fuller sound.

Until this album came out, I never realized how consistently strong Something About Airplanes and We Have the Facts are. I've always enjoyed these albums, but I didn't process the fact that there are no apparent weak moments; I could relate to every song they churned out. Unfortunately, The Photo Album has shown me the side of Death Cab that I cannot relate to as well. I can see how people would enjoy songs such as "Information Travels Faster" and "I Was A Kaleidoscope", but for whatever reason, they just don't quite do anything for me. And some sections are just a bit too poppy and/or predictable for my personal preference.

But on the other hand, this album also displays Death Cab's most unique and strongest efforts such as "A Movie Script Ending", with it's subtle mood changes; "Styrofoam Plates", with its lulling guitars; "We Laugh Indoors", showcasing Death Cab's most unique venture; and "Debate Expresses Doubt", with its amazing outro section. No, this is not Death Cab for Cutie's greatest album, but I'm sure it will play a vital role in the future of their music. Whether they continue this style, tread back to their old style, or jump to a new style, the fact remains that Death Cab for Cutie can still craft an amazing pop tart that gets me extremely moist.

The Photo Album Bonus CD
rating: 9.3

As if 10 songs weren't enough, a bonus disc comes with the limited version of The Photo Album at no extra cost. Life doesn't get much better than this, unless of course you're listening and eating a Monster Burger from Hardees at the same time. With only three songs and 20 odd minutes (already more than half the length of The Photo Album), Death Cab spit out two originals and a cover song that take you emotionally further than any song off the full-length.

The bonus disc begins with the extremely laid back "20th Century Towers". The opening guitar riff sounds more like a Mogwai song than a DCFC creation, as a sullen Ben Gibbard gently sings his heart out: "We'll correct collegiate mistakes / A shower of formal ideals / Completely soused / The hearts on our sleeves". Gibbard keeps a quiet demeanor throughout most of the song until the end nears by, where he cleverly raises the intensity of his voice for the word "softly": "When I sang softly in your ear and tied these arms around you". The song ends with harmonized guitars gently laying the song to sleep.

The cover song is Bjork's "All Is Full of Love", which comes as a welcome surprise. If you've heard the original version, you can only imagine how hard it would be to recreate the mood with rock instruments. And even more challenging would be pulling it off without sounding cheesy. But Death Cab pass successfully, adding structure and raw attitude to the once free-form love song.

The final song "Stability" is definitely one of DCFC's most intimate approaches, and stands as one of their most moving songs. It begins with a simple piano line, eventually swelling into a delicate musical journey, fully accentuated by Chris Walla's amazing guitar work. After three minutes of beautiful, soothing music, the song falls on a slow drumbeat with no apparent reverberation. Guitars slowly creep in as Gibbard provides falsetto vocals that are effectively pushed in the background. The riff continues for over 8 more minutes, slowly engulfing every inch of your body. The song features guest appearances by labelmate John Vanderslice, who sings backup vocals, and James Mendenhall who takes over the piano during the outro.

After listening to The Photo Album and then hearing the bonus CD that came with it, I realized that Death Cab for Cutie are fucking geniuses -- and they might not even know it. It just seems amazing to me that they are not spending countless nights wide-eyed, regretting the fact that they actually left these masterpieces off the full-length album. Don't get me wrong, The Photo Album is certainly not a disappointment by any means, but it's just that these songs are absolutely incredible. These songs are everything I love about Death Cab for Cutie, and more; and by the time the CD ends, you'll notice that you didn't even take a bite out of your Monster Burger.

1. Steadier Footing
2. A Movie Script Ending
3. We Laugh Indoors
4. Information Travels Faster
5. Why You'd Want to Live Here
6. Blacking Out the Friction
7. I Was A Kaleidoscope
8. Styrofoam Plates
9. Coney Island
10. Debate Exposes Doubt

BONUS CD:
1. 20th Century Towers
2. All is Full of Love (Bjork)
3. Stability

We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes
Barsuk, 2000
rating: 9.0
reviewer: rather ripped

At long last, after years of grumbling "Ya call that music? Sounds like noise to me! Now when I was yer age...", the recently-expired decade's milieu of reluctantly-labeled "alternative" musicians has produced a band that I can respect. For someone who cut their teeth on Before and After Science by Eno, Exposure by Fripp, 154 by Wire, and ...Happily Ever After by the Cure, Death Cab For Cutie offer a veritable cornucopia of sonic delight and tastefulness, rich with irony and multi-layered meaning. From the graphic concepts of the album packaging to the aural landscape of their minimal production values, DCFC hearken back to the understated yet vibrant post-punk art-rock period of twenty years ago when independent labels like Factory created album concepts that were as much objets d'art as sound recordings.

From the first notes of the laconically listed "Title Track", the unhurried music-box guitar over an almost metronomic snare beat accompany a vocal track that somehow manages to emote emotionlessly in a single breath. Vocalist/Lyricist Benjamin Gibbard weaves a tale of romance and despair that vibrates continuously, if elusively, throughout the album, which resembles in some ways a song cycle or "concept album" as they used to call them in the 70's.

The theme seems to be the emotional dramas surrounding a love affair between two individuals embroiled in the alt-rock/art scene of fin de siecle Seattle, but that may very well be reading between the lines of these delicate and impressionistic songs too much. Clues seem to arise out of the mix at certain points: The transition from "lo-fi" to a full sonic landscape after the opening song's first verse seems to be an aesthetic looking forward from the stereotypically hip and over-used "unproduced" sound prevalent in the past few years, as if to say: Just as black and white photos may obscure the fact that the world from which those photos were taken did in fact possess color, so too is it easy to forget that the universe of lo-fi rock and thrift store clothes hide lives that cover broader dimensions than those underlined by a particular, narrow style. Barely into the second verse in their first song DCFC have buried the past and entered a new millenium.

The pathos of the wistful, retrospective lyrics is heightened by their off-handed, almost detached tone. "I rushed this. We moved to fast," is not your typical admission of complicity in a rock song. When the narrator manages to work himself up to something approaching anger, it still remains abstracted--"In the end, I win every time as ink remains./Sour tastes prevail as you play back the tape machine." All of the gestures of defiance expressed are passive-aggressive, bookish, imploded, as one might expect within the music scene landscape that is perhaps being metaphorically described here.

As the songs unfold one begins to imagine a sort of Annie Hall for 90's Seattle--an ironic study of how hard it is to maintain a relationship in a cultural setting where every intention and action is scrutinized for its aesthetic content or authenticity. Indeed, much like Woody Allen, the narrator is painted as the classic cool hipoisie over-thinker whose only available gesture of outrage at an ex-lover's imminent marriage is to steal the wedding figurines from the cake.

"Company Calls", the climactic and anthemic centerpiece, sculpts this tension in vivid poetic terms. "I'd squeeze a heart through my fingertip/but I type too slow to make expressions stick"; "I'd keep a distance 'cause the complications cloud it all...synapse to synapse: possibilities will thin or fade." In the face of an inevitable dissolution, the narrator leaps from denial to acceptance with a scant leapfrog over the rage. In some sense we could appropriate the metaphor of a love affair demolished by a marriage to describe the pillaging of the alt-rock scene by commercialism. Our cool small thing looted and destroyed by the big record companies. Our cool town taken over by the dot-com yuppies. And yet, the dissolution was written in the very formulas of its initial existence, like a prophecy. The only answer seems to be to move on--"Our bodies will dissolve the chemicals in due time" the narrator observes dryly. The battle of the appropriation of independent coolness is part of the 20th century, and this album is boldly stamped with a release date from the 21st. This was the first album I bought in the new millenium, and so far it's the most fascinating.

1. Title Track
2. The Employment Pages
3. For What Reason
4. Lowell, Ma
5. Little Fury Bugs
6. 405
7. Company Calls
8. Company Calls Epilogue
9. No Joy in Mudville
10. Scientist Studies

 

Something about Airplanes
Barsuk, 1999
rating: 8.7
reviewer: mr p

Pop bands are a dime a dozen. They spring out from places you never would have thought possible. Suburbs, cities, slums, ditches, sewers...okay, I may be getting a little too dramatic, but out of all these pop bands there are only a handful of special ones. Special pop bands? I mean bands that have mastered the pop sound. It is so easy to be labeled a pop band nowadays. Just follow the simple formula:

1. A choice between one, two, or three guitarists, a drummer, and a bassist.
2. Catchy songs. (preferably verse-chorus-verse structures)
3. Distortion pedals
4. Optional Moog player

Death Cab for Cutie has an advantage over the typical pop bands, though. Somehow they found the secret to pop music. No one knows exactly what the "secret" is, but they do know that is has something to do with being able to write extremely catchy songs without ever getting boring or predictable. And DCFC does just that. They manage to keep your toes-a-tappin' while you enjoy their unique brand of sophisticated pop. Because of their knowledge of the secret, they have managed to master the pop sound.

I am forced to guess that it has a lot to do with Ben Gibbard. It is no secret that Mr. Gibbard is gushing with talent. He started in a solo project playing all the instruments under the name All-Time Quarterback. Now, Ben is the singer/writer/guitarist and founder of DCFC. His voice seems very familiar, yet unique at the same time. Similarities can be drawn from such artists as Elliott Smith, Doug Martsch, and Matthew Pryor.

Something About Airplanes is arguably DCFC's most important and best album to date. It is not produced as well as their newest efforts, but maybe that is why it is so great. Subtle mistakes and "sloppiness" are spread throughout, giving the album a raw, yet genuine feel.

The word 'variety' is a good term to describe this album. The album starts with a seemingly out of tune acoustic guitar with a shaky violin line on the song "Bend to Squares." The song is followed by "President of What." A rather upbeat tune, reminiscent of Built to Spill, that is followed by two eerie, laid-back songs. Toward the end of the album, "Amputations" and "Fake Frowns" are played back-to-back and stand out as the true gems of the album.

So what have we learned today? For one, we have learned the elements that make a pop band. We can also assume from the information that pop does not get much better than this and DCFC is definitely top of the line. Think of them as the Wonder Bra of pop music. But most importantly, we have learned that Death Cab for Cutie can write a damn good tune. Although the music is not the most original stuff on the planet, it sure gives pop a new coat to impress the world.

1. Bend to Squares
2. President of What?
3. Champagne from a Paper Cup
4. Your Bruise
5. Pictures in an Exhibition
6. Sleep Spent
7. The Face That Launched 1000 Ships
8. Amputations
9. Fake Frowns
10. Line of Best Fit