Album Review: Narrow Stairs
Death Cab for Cutie
Atlantic Records
(2008)
***
In preceding albums Transatlanticism (Barsuk, 2003) and Plans (Atlantic, 2005), Death Cab for Cutie lead singer Ben Gibbard sings about wanting the girl, loving the girl, and possibly losing the girl. In Death Cab’s sophomore effort for Atlantic Records, Narrow Stairs , frontman, Ben Gibbard has gotten the girl — now he’s just not sure what he’s supposed to do with her… or if he even really wants her at all. This ambivalence towards romance—and life in general—is echoed not just in his as-always stunning lyrics, but through the variety of tones Gibbard and company experiment within the small eleven-track album.
However, there seems to be wavering indecision on the part of Gibbard; he doesn’t seem to know if he wants to go down a new trail of in-your-face rock or continue to experiment with the atmospheric tones his fans have come to appreciate. What would serve him well is the knowledge that “true” uniqueness, and subsequent edginess in his work, came not from trying to be in-your-face experimental; rather, Death Cab’s greatest gift was its subtlety. As such, Death Cab for Cutie delivers an album at once dazzling and disappointing, with a handful of tracks still able to reach into the listener’s heart and elevate, while another handful may leave the same listeners stone cold.
The album’s premier single “I Will Possess Your Heart” reminds us what was wonderful about Death Cab for Cutie in the first place (a reminder we’ll certainly need once we near the end of the album). This eight-and-a-half minute long song spends the first four minutes and thirty seconds as nothing but instrumental playfulness: you can practically hear Gibbard’s band-mates Chris Walla (guitar), Nicholas Harner (bass), and Jason McGerr (drums) work out their emotions (in this case, unrequited love) through their music. The effect is haunting and beautiful, and only intensified by Gibbard’s lyrics, the chorus “You’ve got to spend some time, love/You’ve got to spend some time with me” perhaps explaining the reason for the length of the single, an artistic self-indulgence that informs us this piece may have been written by and large for the members of Death Cab for Cutie with no conscious intention to please its now-massive audience.
Songs like “Cath…”, which tells the sad tale of a doomed bride marrying out of fear rather than love, contain such brilliantly simple yet powerful lines as “She holds a smile like someone would hold a crying child”; and the song “No Sunlight”, whose deliberate cheerfulness makes you grin and nod your head, no matter how bad your day has been. All this exemplifies Death Cab for Cutie’s uncanny ability to play its audience like puppets, still capable of twisting the strings of listeners’ hearts. Lucky for Death Cab for Cutie, we like being played.
The problems arise when Death Cab for Cutie aims less for the murky regions of the heart and more for the obvious. Songs such as “You Can Do Better Than Me,” “The Ice Is Getting Thinner,” “Your Twin Sized Bed,” and, really, most of the songs that end Narrow Stairs, veer from what Death Cab for Cutie listeners have come to respect. Certainly, any band’s sound should be encouraged to change and grow, but by the end of Narrow Stairs, this one’s sound began to feel like it was tailored more for mainstream consumption than being about the art. As a result, while the first half of album is, for the most part, a more mature twist on Death Cab for Cutie’s style, the band either threw in the towel before the last few songs or lost faith in its listeners along the way. By then, Gibbard throws his obvious metaphors in our face over and over again, an unpleasant effect amplified by the band’s strained attempt to sound more like a band we’d hear on mainstream radio and less like a song used as background for contemplation and self-discovery.
Thus, like Gibbard’s attempt, I must also leave the Narrow Stairs, ambivalent. Some songs are worth a re-listen, but if it comes to choosing between that album and its prior release, Transatlanticism, I would go with the latter. “This is the New Year,” and, sadly, I do feel different.
