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Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs
| Avclub |
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Death Cab For Cutie multi-instrumentalist and producer Chris Walla sounded the alarm just after New Year's: In one interview, he described Narrow Stairs as a "total curve ball" and a "really polarizing record" that's "got some teeth." To drive the message home, the band designated the eight-minute "I Will Possess Your Heart" as the album's first single, albeit in truncated radio-ready form. But change is always relative. For a generally fey band like Death Cab, a darker, more abrasive approach has produced simply its most rock 'n' roll album to date. "Bixby Canyon Bridge" opens the album in typical Death Cab fashion, with a ghostly guitar and Ben Gibbard's voice. Bass and a second guitar come in intermittently, and a hi-hat ticks quietly. But when drummer Jason McGerr comes down hard on his toms, the guitars distort, and the airiness of the song's first minute gives way to the immediacy of a rock club....full text |
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| Boston |
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The first single from the new Death Cab for Cutie album begins with a long wordless groove. It's practically prog, this swarm of shimmering keyboards, throbbing bass notes, and wandering guitars, and the sound builds, disarmingly, to a measured and chilling peak. At the 4 1/2-minute mark, when most rock tunes would have already come and gone, Ben Gibbard starts to sing. "You gotta spend some time with me," enthuses the stalker - a tenor! - to his prey on "I Will Possess Your Heart," "and I know that you'll find love." It's a perverse analogy, but Gibbard could be cajoling Death Cab's audience with those words, and with the quartet's seductive sprawl of a sixth studio album. "Narrow Stairs," out next Tuesday, is more than an artistic gesture. It's a statement of purpose from a onetime college-town indie band that is well on its way to becoming a real rarity in pop: an intrepid major-label rock group that demands autonomy and has the creative vision to back it up....full text |
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| Spin |
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From afar, Death Cab for Cutie don't seem to have evolved very much over seven albums: The Seattle band still explore love's tender, bruiseable side with Ben Gibbard's sometimes delicate, sometimes forceful vocals set to sometimes delicate, sometimes forceful indie rock. But a micro look reveals distinctions between the demure group that made 1999's Something About Airplanes and the gents standing atop Narrow Stairs: After a slow and careful ascent, Death Cab now radiate hard-earned confidence with every note. Though sonically similar to 2005's gold-certified Plans, Narrow Stairs is considerably darker: Plans' sweet elegy "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" echoes here in album closer "The Ice Is Getting Thinner," which sparingly documents a relationship's slow end, rather than a hand-holding journey to eternity. Elsewhere, Gibbard affixes bright melodies to the death of optimism ("No Sunlight"), the futility of commitment ("Cath," "You Can Do Better Than Me"), and pity and fear (uh, "Pity and Fear")....full text |
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