PB&Jams: Death Cab for Cutie
Death Cab for Cutie has put out an unbelievable amount of music in their 17 years as a band. From 1998’s “Something About Airplanes,” through the iconic album “Plans” (2005) — which featured some of the tracks that made Death Cab a household name, including “Soul Meets Body” and “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” — these albums were just the beginning. “Narrow Stairs” (2008) and “Codes and Keys” (2011) only furthered the band’s standing as a staple of the indie rock community.
Bassist Nick Harmer told Rolling Stonethat Kintsugi refers to “a Japanese style of art where they take fractured, broken ceramics and put them back together with very obvious, real gold.” He elaborated, "It's making the repair of an object a visual part of its history. That resonated with us as a philosophy, and it connected to a lot of what we were going through, both professionally and personally." This sort of imagery lines up well with the lyrical wisdom of lead singer Ben Gibbard, who has woven tale after tale on each album with this band.
“Black Sun” is the lead single off the album, for which the music videowas released on Feb. 11. Rolling Stone described the single as “psychedelic,” which I think may be a bit of a stretch — even if the song goes a little bit outside of Death Cab’s usual box. On second thought, we really shouldn’t be putting them into a box at all given that it’s the same band that wrote both “What Sarah Said” and “You Are A Tourist.”
The first song on the album, “No Room In Frame,” is my immediate favorite. Building quickly from the early-morning vibe at the start to the guitar line that picks up after the first minute, the song is strikingly beautiful. The chorus has the classic Death Cab combination of upbeat musical composition and harrowing lyrics.
Was I in your way?
When the cameras turned to face you
No room in frame
For two
How can I stay?
In the sun
When the rain flows
All through my veins
Its true
And I guess it’s not a failure we can help
And we’ll both go on to get lonely with someone else
With someone else
“Everything’s A Ceiling” is lyrically clever with sober realizations like:
The only stars I see in the sky
They don’t move me
‘Cause they’ve all been dead for millions of years
They’re just light diffusing
This track strikes me as very Death-Cab-circa-Codes-and-Keys. Other favorites of mine off the album include “Hold No Guns,” “Binary Sea” and “You Have Haunted Me All My Life,” which is quite, well, haunting.
Beautiful versions of “Black Sun” and “No Room In Frame” can be found in the band’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert along with live versions of two of their older songs. Check it out here.