Album Review: Death Cab For Cutie - “Narrow Stairs” (Atlantic)
Like some people and Jesus, I have a close personal relationship with Death Cab For Cutie. With an almost eerie sense of timing, they’ve managed to release the perfect album for any number of critical points in my, and many of my peers, adolescence. The Photo Album (Barsuk) was one of the first non-radio albums I “discovered.” Transatlanticism (Barsuk) got worn out on my first car’s shitty CD player. Plans (Atlantic) was the only thing that relieved the homesickness of my freshman year of college. Basically, I will love this band until Ben Gibbard starts singing about the ironic fallibility of Depends and how his grandkids never come visit him anymore. However, despite the utterly inappropriate journalistic bias, Narrow Stairs (Atlantic) doesn’t quite live up to the standard of work the band has previously put out.
More after the jump.
Narrow Stairs is, at first listen, an okay album. It lacks the catchy yet complex feel of The Photo Album and earlier albums. Nor does it have the immediate emotional connection of Transatlanticism and Plans. Instead, it finds the band trying to answer this question: How does a group whose legacy is based on adolescent styled angst come to terms with getting older and supposedly wiser?
As a result, Narrow Stairs has a decidedly more muted feel than previous works. This question also might be the explanation for the completely unnecessary four-minute intro to the single, “I Will Possess Your Heart.”
It’s nice to see the band experimenting, but they could have done it in a much more constructive way. It almost feels like they were saying “Hey, even though we’re on a major label now, look at us be avant-garde!” The whole album feels like an awkward compromise between old and new Death Cab.
Of course, the album isn’t without high points. “Grapevine Fires” is a beautiful song, combining melancholy organ with a soft, soaring chorus of “it’ll be alright.” Though “The Ice Is Getting Thinner” is much simpler lyrically than one might expect from Gibbard. It’s heartbreaking sparseness should cause it to end up being the song everyone plays this year during a breakup.
Overall the album is perfectly described by it’s own lyrics; “Gotta spend some time love / gotta spend some time with me.” It might take few hundred listens to possess your heart, if it ever does.
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Death Cab for Cutie: Narrow Stairs…
The Narrow Stairs is refreshingly one of those albums that render a lighter tone from the band after some of those bleak few years that Death Cab for Cutie has resonated and experimented with.
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Good blog. I feel you. Their song “In Sunlight” is really hitting home. It makes me really sad.
Good blog. I agree that they have always been there for me. Their lyrics spoke of my life. It was nice to feel that someone out there is going through the same thing as you. Having a song define me is what makes music mean the most to me. Their song “In Sunlight” is really hitting home for me. I am going through the same thing but I won’t ever give up my dreams. I hope DCFC doesn’t either. Their songs are so contradictory sometimes with their upbeat rhythm. yet solemn and depressing lyrical messages. I dig it.