Collide Magazine

Death Cab for Cutie's Descent

Ben Gastright - Originally posted Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Death Cab For Cutie has achieved unquestionable success. After five LPs and a handful of EPs on Seattle’s Barsuk Records, DCFC signed a recording contract with Atlantic Records in 2004. Much like their Pacific Northwest cohorts Modest Mouse and the Decemberists, they smoothly transitioned to the big leagues without losing their credibility. Their major label debut, Plans, went platinum and earned a Grammy nomination for best pop performance by a duo or group for their single, “I Will Follow You Into The Dark.”

After touring behind Plans through a hefty portion of 2006 and building a larger fan base, the band took some time off, each member going his own creative way.

In May of this year the band released Narrow Stairs, their second record on Atlantic and sixth studio album overall. Narrow Stairs debuted at number one on Billboard’s Top 200, selling over 140,000 copies, and hasn’t left the top 10 as of press time.

This is clearly the beginning of a success story. Yet, as happy as these achievements can make a band, there’s still a lack of satisfaction, namely with front man Ben Gibbard.

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In a recent essay for Paste, Gibbard wrote: “I find it very hard to accept the wonderful things in my life. My life really is great: I do exactly what I want to do for a living, I have a wonderful person to share my life with, I have a great family, I have great friends. But somehow there’s a void.”

That emptiness consumes Narrow Stairs, a dark record ripe with stories of disappointment. Each song is built around a relationship and in some way deals with love. But on this new album the listener will not find hope, just themes of loss and disenchantment, which are not new to Gibbard or his band.

The void is naturally reflected on DCFC’s previous albums, Transatlanticism and Plans. While these albums don’t match the emotional weight of Stairs, they do carry some heavy words.

Transatlanticism touches on inadequacy (“Expo ‘86” and “A Lack of Color”) and regret (“Title and Registration” and “The Sound of Settling”), while still believing in hope and love (“The New Year,” “Transatlanticism,” and “Passenger Seat”).

Gibbard carries some of that lightness into Plans with the first two songs (“Marching Bands of Manhattan” and “Soul Meets Body”), but then it’s back to his realization that love wasn’t meant to be (“Summer Skin” and “Your Heart is an Empty Room”) or simply will not last (“Someday You Will Be Loved” and “Brothers on a Hotel Bed”).

Despite the lyrical murkiness of Stairs, this record is a musical step forward for the band. Death Cab has expounded well without betraying their established sound, as evidenced from the surprising variation of “Bixby Canyon Bridge,” the gutsy length (8:26) of their first single, “I Will Possess Your Heart,” the bouncy “No Sunlight” to the jagged percussion of “Cath,” and the waltzing keys and fat drums of “You Can Do Better Than Me” (which could have easily found a place on the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds).

Narrow Stairs opens with its best song, “Bixby Canyon Bridge,” an eloquent yet stark account of Gibbard’s time alone in Big Sur, CA, where he finished writing the album. Big Sur drew him to its natural beauty as it once drew a hero of his, Jack Kerouac. Kerouac wrote one of his bleakest novels, fittingly called Big Sur, after his eight-month stay in the coastal town. Over distantly trembling guitar, Gibbard tells of his attempt to connect with Kerouac’s lingering spirit, “I eventually arrived at the place where your soul had died … and waited for you to speak to me.” The arpeggios are as tentative as he is; they build to heavy chugs with rolling bass lines as Gibbard seeks greater meaning. He wants to know his fate, wants to know if he missed significant opportunities along the way. He’s so close to the answers, he’s just not looking in the right place. The song builds to a hectic shower of drums and distortion as Gibbard sings behind it, “You can’t see a dream.” With the last line, “I trudged back to where the car was parked, no closer to any kind of truth, as I must assume was the case with you,” Narrow Stairs begins its descent to lonelier depths than DCFC’s previous albums.

“A lot of the material is about the inevitable disappointment people feel as they move through life, and things don’t feel the way they expect,” Gibbard said. “No experience will ever match up to the idealized version in your mind.”

The aforementioned single, “I Will Possess Your Heart,” is about a stalker who wants a girl to notice him, to recognize how awesome he is. She rejects him, but he doesn’t give up. It’s the guy’s “delusion of thinking that they were meant to be together” that Gibbard says makes the song so very creepy.

“No Sunlight” uses the sun as a metaphor for the optimism of youth turned realistically dismal—the older we become the more pessimistic our outlook can be. The music, however, is sweet and light-hearted. Also a musical gem, “You Can Do Better Than Me (But I Can’t Do Better Than You)” has a title that says it all.

“Cath” is an achingly sad song about a woman (“who holds a smile like someone would hold a crying child”) who’s gone too long without a significant man in her life. She got married to the wrong one simply before it was too late to get married at all—“your heart was dying fast and you didn’t know what to do.” Sympathy soaks Gibbard’s voice to the end, when he admits, “I’d have done the same as you.”

The album hits a few lulls with “Talking Bird,” “Grapevine Fires,” and “Your New Twin Sized Bed.” Fortunately, the guys wake back up with the kicking, muted bass, speedy strums, and 80s synth of “Long Division.” But like the others, we’re left with a dismal story about a man who isn’t content with staying in one place, with his girl, with settling down. Not that adventure and independence are bad but being selfish and impulsive can be. Both parties are left with nothing.

“Pity And Fear,” like “Bixby,” is an experimental sonic leap, opening with almost alien sounding beats and an eerie guitar riff, like something out of a Mark Snow-composed The X-Files episode. It then evolves into a rock song with a familiar drumbeat and acoustic guitar over the same Martian terrain, as Gibbard tells of the dissatisfaction of a one-night stand and about how relationships in general will inevitably fail.

Unfortunately, the album ends with the all-too-obvious seasonal metaphors of “The Ice Is Getting Thinner.” Gibbard admits: “We’re not the same, dear, as we used to be. The seasons have changed and so have we.” People fall in love, and they also change. We all know it. But that doesn’t mean you fall out of love and give up, get a divorce, and find someone new. The point of being with someone is making it last by working through the hard times because you love each other. If you’re honestly committed, no matter the difficulties, you’ll love each other for life.

Gibbard was more devoted on Plans’ “I Will Follow You Into The Dark,” a delicate love song about dying at the same time as the one you’ve spent your life with. What happened to that optimism?

“I would rather make great records than great relationships. When I’m at odds with myself, I would rather [mess] up every relationship I’ve ever been in and write great records,” said Gibbard in Paste. “Music is the one thing I’ve always been able to rely on. So why wouldn’t it be the most important thing in my life?”

Gibbard’s love for music and its importance in his life are apparent, and in his own way, he’s right: Why not rely on something that hasn’t let you down? Sadly, he’s not thinking eternally.

Overall, Narrow Stairs is a strong album. DCFC’s love and dedication for what they do is apparent in every note and beat played. Let’s just hope that for his own sake, for the band’s sake, for the sake of us all, that Gibbard finds more meaning in life than his music.

Ben Gastright lives in Dallas, TX with his wife Jodi.