MOG

I must admit that I listened to the album beforehand through a leak, but by the time I actually got the cd in my hands, I was calm enough to actually sit and digest the words. the lyrics are much more literal than the past albums of dcfc, so if you're like me and live for deconstructing similes, Something About Airplanes is a better album to turn to (Fake Frowns? come,on).

"Bixby Canyon Bridge" is the perfect song to start off with, because it's such a personal introduction to the whole album. Ben Gibbard spent time at Big Sur just as Jack Kerouac did to conjure up some sort of intuitive insight that never came. which relates to the most common disappointment that all of us face- failed expectations and elaborate idealisms set by ourselves.

the single,"I Will Possess Your Heart" makes me want to sway for the whole 8 and a quarter minutes. "it's like a book elegantly bound but in a language you can't read, just yet" this is the most beautiful and stalkeriest line I've ever heard. The irony of a dark song w/ an upbeat melody comes up again in songs like "No Sunlight" and "Your New Twin Sized Bed". Both are so fucking sad while the melody was made for easy cruising on roller skates with a melting ice cream cone in hand circa 1994. just that juxtaposition amplifies the dejection.

"Cath" seems like an afterthought of "Company Calls Epilogue,"(weep) from DCFC's third album, We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes, but spoken from more of a narrator than someone so emotionally attached. Then comes "Talking Bird" which is a bit, can I say it?... dull, but is makes up for it with sweet little lines of what seems to be unconditional love.

"You Can Do Better Than Me" is so embarrassingly honest, in a good way. only 2 minutes long, the song is left short because its as though the words are too raw and would leave the narrator too vulnerable if repeated. It is then followed by "Grapevine Fires,which is becoming a fast favorite of mine. the inevitabilities of life is a reoccurring theme, and sometimes there's nothing we can do but just sit and wait.

oh ho ho, "Long Division." I find myself just waiting for the throaty oh ho hos. I love the perfect, but strange, similes to relationships that come up from DCFC, such as a this mathematical equation. things are slowed down with "Pity and Fear," a very different sounding Death Cab. things start kicking up with the line, "I recall the push more than the fall" where the the act of falling is translated into the carazy end.

and would a Death Cab album be a righteous one without that one sad song about an inevitable drifting relationship? of course not. add "The Ice is Getting Thinner" to your "songs to fall asleep to (in a good way)" playlist.

Overall, Narrow Stairs really highlights the growth of the band, both musically and lyrically. It's such a leap from Plans, but it's still a grower. I think it takes more than a few listens for it to sink it. Take In Rainbows off of repeat for a while and feast on this.

I attached a live version of "Bixby Canyon Bridge" from the McDonald Theatre at Eugene, Oregon provided by Sometimes I Tape Stuff