Death Cab

Death Cab for Cutie! You can hear the new CD, Narrow Stairs, for free this week on Spinner.com's CD Listening Party.

As for the delightful, professional review from The Gazette below, be a player- not a spectator. Submit your own review at CultureClique.com

CD review: Narrow Stairs, Death Cab For Cutie

Songs still pretty, but now with bite

T'CHA DUNLEVY, Gazette Music Critic

Published: 8 hours ago

Death Cab for Cutie
Narrow Stairs
Atlantic/Warner
Rating: 4 (out of 5)

Ben Gibbard has one of the purest voices in indie-pop. And it was put to the prettiest of uses on Death Cab for Cutie's sixth album, and major label debut, 2005's Plans. Those songs were spiritual hymns, deeply stirring and life-affirming in their weightless expanse.

This follow-up starts with a trick. The first song, Bixby Canyon Bridge, finds Gibbard singing with characteristic innocence over a lilting backdrop of shimmering and plucked guitars, before the power chords and drums kick in.

Not content to rest on its laurels, the Seattle band goes for grit here, both musical and lyrical. There is menace in the bleeding distortion at song's end. It is at once a relief and the breaking of a spell - a reminder to one and all that this is a rock group, and sometimes life is messy.

There is no about-face. Gibbard remains a poet; but his heart is heavy. These tales of miscommunications, failed relationships and abandoned dreams are given appropriate layers of nuance. Even in the darkest moments, there is a familiar, soaring grace. Yet at strategic intervals, the band lets 'er rip. And therein lies the difference.

The 81/2-minute first single, I Will Possess Your Heart, begins with a five-minute instrumental passage, a slow-building, drifting expanse that gives way to a soft-sung stalker anthem, with the opening lines: "How I wish you could see the potential / The potential of you and me. ... You gotta spend some time, love / You gotta spend some time with me."

He could be speaking about the very song on which he's singing, and the album it accompanies. Traditional pop formats are resisted, but kept within reach as the band flexes its intuitive muscle. These songs were recorded live off the floor. They are alive and unpredictable, in contrast to Plans' post-production perfection.

There are up-tempo numbers. The backbeat-driven No Sunlight, the breakup song Long Division and the second half of Pity and Fear all forge ahead on crests of energy, and provide rough-and-tumble rebuttal to any O.C.-assisted sellout accusations.

This disc is not a knee-jerk reaction, but rather an awakening. It is uplifting, despite its solemn subject matter; but its real strength - like the band's - resides between the lines. There is no black and white. There are beautiful sad songs with jagged edges, soft landings, swelling surges and intimate asides. It's pretty as ever, but with more bite.

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