Okay, I've removed the mp3. I think it's stupid that, on a site where we're supposed to have discussions about music, I feel like I'm talking to a wall. I'm not a comment whore, but I did put some work into this and I'd appreciate feedback.
Okay, so... there's a new Death Cab album out. And it is, obviously, wonderful.
It's also unlike anything they've done previously. Ben Gibbard's lyrics are more--not basic, but bare-bones, perhaps. Gone is the cheerful imagery; perhaps because this is not a particularly cheerful album. I like the way it was described in an interview: "much more lunar". I forget who said that, but I think it was Chris Walla? At any rate, despite being a kind of strange-yet-specific-metaphor, which is usually hard to pull off well, the phrase is correct. The album has a very spacey feel to most of its songs--and some slam you back down to Earth (although we still look to the sky, of course, at least in the song "No Sunlight"). The others hover uncertainly between, but it's a good kind of uncertain--and an intentional one.
This review is Part One for two reasons: One, I talk too damn much, and two, I want to share more than one track with you guys. I was severely tempted to split up my review into eleven parts... but that would have been silly and also ruined the feeling of the album as a whole.
That's another thing. The songs bled together on this album in a style roughly reminiscent of Pink Floyd's The Wall. The album doesn't go down smoothly, however. It goes down... haphazardly, just like life--and particularly the side of life this album is trying to represent.
The album is, in a nutshell, about the disappointment that comes from everyday life. The dragging moments, the moments we regret, the turning points into oblivion. Most songs on Death Cab for Cutie albums manage to end on a sort of hopeful note, despite their lyrical content, something like "Yes, life sucks, but this isn't over." This album is a jumble: some songs are depressingly final, and some are depressing with a feeling of unfinishedness, and some are slightly depressing, but with the hint of better things to come.
Ben Gibbard's lyrics, as I've mentioned, take a different turn on this record. He's much more straightforward, bare-bones, fewer moments of the dazzling imagery he's famous for creating. I miss the imagery, but I can understand why it's not in these songs: because it would be very odd. These songs are intentionally raw and emotional, and designed, as I've said before, to throw you off-balance: one track even cuts off abrubtly, in the middle of a kind of frenetic flurry, and then goes into a slow guitar song.
Anyway, onto the track review.
Track One- Bixby Canyon Bridge A slow, ponderous song, this track is the opener, and it sets the tone of the songs to follow. In this regard, it does a very good job: it's slow and introspective at first, but then it smashes you (much like a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster) with a fierce, insistent, pounding beat that is kkind of more like metal (which they listened to while making this CD) than indie. The song is about Ben travelling to Big Sur, where his idol Jack Kerouac spent time. Ben was attempting to get some inspiration, but, as he says, "this didn't play out like it did in my mind". Speaking of Kerouac, his later novels--the more depressing ones--are apparently how Ben Gibbard is feeling now, and subsequently the backbone of most of the emotion for Narrow Stairs. There's a bit of electronic noise at the end that I think was supposed to throw you off-guard. It does, but it's kind of annoying. Still, the song is a good way to start the album. However, it's not going to be one I listen to frequently on its own.
Track Two: I Will Possess Your Heart
This track you guys have probably heard before. There's been debate over whether or not the long lead-in is necessary. I believe it is, because it slowly builds up to an inevitable crescendo of feirocity, with Jason McGerr's drums slowly picking up pace and becoming wild, yet controlled, thrashing. Lyrically, the song is, as Ben has said, fiction related to some true events that happened to some people he knew. The lyrics are meant to be dark and creepy--Gibbard doesn't really think this way. He is playing a character as he sings. The choice of the word "Possess" is, I think, even creepier than the line "there are days when outside your window / I see my reflection as I slowly pass".
Track Three: No Sunlight A very lush, lyrically simplistic song. The lyrics echo the nature of the song: it starts in the very early days of childhood, and then slowly, the vocabulary of the narrator grows as the song progresses in time. It's a childhood song, but it's a childhood song about an adult who's kind of disillusioned with life. The guitar here is nice; Death Cab has always been good about instantly recognizable hooks and melodies--so much that any serious listener will be able to immediately identify any song they start playing at a life show. No Sunlight is no different in that regard. The song is about a loss of innocence: the sunlight represents peaceful, idyllic times, which are slowly covered up as "more clouds appeared / till the sky went black / and there was no sunlight, no sunlight". It's a cheery sound for a slightly mournful song, and it is the track I have chosen for this post. Enjoy the taste of things to come.
