MOG

‘Narrow Stairs’ is not an easy album to love. In fact, as soon as it was over, I had to listen to it again. And then again. Because I was afraid something had happened. I was afraid I was right. Quotes like this were floating around:
”Thus far it’s pretty weird, and pretty spectacular; lots of blood. It’s creepy and heavy… We’ve got a ten minute long Can [German experimental band – JM] jam.”

- Chris Walla on hallofjusticerecording.com

and:

“It's really weird. It's really, really good, I think, but it's totally a curve ball, and I think it's gonna be a really polarizing record.”
- Chris Walla to Billboard Magazine

and:

"I just don't feel like we really have anything to prove of it other than to ourselves and to making a record we really enjoy."

- Ben Gibbard on deathcabforcutie.com

This sort of thing scared the bejesus out of me. I didn’t want weird, or polarizing or creepy. I love Death Cab – I travelled to London during a period of unemployment (no easy feat) just to see them and am hoping beyond hope for a Dublin headline show this year. I wanted that special, easygoing pop-rock sound, the stuff that I’d heard on ‘Plans’ and ‘Transatlanticism’ (which is in my all-time Top 5) and ‘The Photo Album’ (which is actually better than ‘Transatlanticism’, all told, but I don’t love it as much.) To me, “I just don't feel like we really have anything to prove” sounded suspiciously like an excuse for some self-indulgence and navel-gazing. I’d heard the first single ‘I Will Possess Your Heart’ and the two new songs (‘Cath…’ and ‘Talking Bird’) that had appeared on ‘The Daytrotter Sessions’ and they’d only allayed my fears a little. But I don’t like to judge an album by it’s first single; or by a couple of alternate versions – who knows if they’re really representative of the whole thing? So I listened. And I listened again. And then I listened again. And by then, I was starting to like it.

That’s not to say that this isn’t a self-indulgent album on the part of Death Cab for Cutie. MOGgers have had the privilege of being able to keep up with Ben Gibbard’s listening habits over the past twenty months or so; and as such we can kind of see the influences. We’ve already mentioned the experimental Kraut-rock (in Chris Walla’s “10 minute Can jam) There’s evidence of Harry Nilsson – if we’re going to pick an overriding for the album it’s probably what the Beach Boys or the Dave Clarke Five would sound like covering ‘Without You’, such are the jingly melodies covering the bleak subject matter. Death Cab have for a long time been the Roe vs. Wade of Indie vs. Emo music, the former camp claiming them musically while the latter lyrically. ‘Narrow Stairs’ does nothing to quell the debate.

‘Bixby Canyon Bridge’ kicks right off with appropriately Kerouacian imagery (Gibbard took a well publicised sabbatical to Big Sur, and has frequently mentioned Jack Kerouac as a favourite author and influence), stream of consciousness lyrics emphasised with words that run between lines (‘Until I eventu/ally arrived’) and pronunciations are beaten and reformed (‘San Francisco’ becomes three syllables, but somehow all are pronounced) to fit the meter of the song. The California influence, the love-hate relationship with the state that seemed to begin on ‘The Photo Album’s’ ‘Why You’d Want To Live Here’ continues with ‘Grapevine Fires’, which appear to reference the wildfires of 2007 – there’s no love lost between Gibbard and the Golden State, but then again you can’t seem to tear him away from it. “I couldn't think of anywhere I would of rather been to watch it all burn away” he sings. ‘You Can Do Better Than Me’ and ‘Your New Twin Sized Bed’ are exercises in ducking and coping with perceived inevitable rejection – in both songs Gibbard seems to be singing to someone who he is terrified is just about to leave him – like he’s about ten minutes away from Gilbert O’Sullivan’s ‘Alone Again, Naturally.’

The standouts on the album are easy to spot. The opening riff to ‘Cath...’ is awesome, and the song itself, an ode to getting what you settle for, is as striking a song as they’ve ever written. Tribal drums keep ‘Pity And Fear’ away from the ordinary and you will be days trying to get ‘Long Division’ out of your head. Bassist Nick Harmer is given more emphasis and freedom to roam, and Gibbard’s voice is, at times isolated from the instrumental track; and the sound is richer for both of these.

Gibbard sums it up for me on the first single, ‘I Will Possess Your Heart’:

You gotta spend some time, love
you gotta spend some time with me.
And I know that you’ll find, love
I will possess your heart.

You gotta spend time with ‘Narrow Stairs’. But it’s worth it.

As always, here’s the Track Listing:

1. "Bixby Canyon Bridge"
2. "I Will Possess Your Heart"
3. "No Sunlight"
4. "Cath..."
5. "Talking Bird"
6. "You Can Do Better Than Me"
7. "Grapevine Fires"
8. "Your New Twin Sized Bed"
9. "Long Division"
10. "Pity and Fear"
11. "The Ice Is Getting Thinner"