Death Cab for Cutie is a band I’ve featured several times before, so I won’t go into how great I think they are or how much I love Ben Gibbard’s song writing. I will however let you know all about their latest effort Narrow Stairs. This album is the long anticipated follow up to Death Cab’s wildly successful 2005 major label debut Plans. Any fears you may have had about a major label infringing on the band’s creative control and thus watering down the music can be thrown out the window. Narrow Stairs finds Death Cab at their most experimental and you know they aren’t writing for radio when the first single clocks in at over eight minutes. Of course there is a radio edit of “I Will Possess Your Heart” that excludes the four and half minute buildup of an infectious bass line peppered with random guitar and piano parts, but you only get the full effect when you listen to the whole thing. Lyrically, Gibbard is about as dark and lamenting as ever, finding the beauty of a natural disaster in “Grapevine Fires” and sending a dying romance to its wintry grave in “The Ice Is Getting Thinner.” The album isn’t a complete downer though. “No Sunlight” is the sunniest song you will ever hear about pessimism. On “Long Division,” the guitars are much heavier than anything on Plans. In fact the song wouldn’t be out of place on 2001’s The Photo Album or even their 2003 breakthrough Transatlanticism. I can see how some fans could be thrown off by Narrow Stairs and it took me a few listens to really get into it, but once I did, it stayed on repeat for weeks. If nothing else, you have to respect Death Cab for Cutie for making the record they wanted to make and doing it quite well. Today’s song is one of my favorites mainly because of the guitar in the intro. It’s incredibly infectious and leads into a wonderfully written song about a woman who perpetually makes unwise romantic decisions, delivered like a short story with Gibbard’s unmistakable tenor.Death Cab for Cutie - "Cath..."
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