Death Cab For Cutie

photography by chris brown / plaine studios

Death Cab For Cutie
Plans is Seattle quartet Death Cab for Cutie’s fifth album, but in many ways it’s also their first. It’s their first for Atlantic Records, after a long and productive relationship with Seattle-based indie Barsuk. It’s their first recorded on 48 tracks, the first recorded on the East coast, the first with a song orginated by a member other than Ben Gibbard (“Brothers in Hotel Beds,” by Chris Walla). It’s the first recorded with the same drummer (Jason McGerr) as the previous one. And it’s their first album since TV’s Seth Cohen professed his undying love for their music, since tireless touring helped bring them hundreds of thousands of new fans all across the US, and the world.

First and foremost, however, what makes Plans so fresh and so stunning is that it is an album that lives up to its hype, its potential, and its promise. In a hyperspeed culture where bands are signed from their practice spaces, where overhyped genres live and die between issues of a magazine, Death Cab for Cutie is an anachronism, a throwback: a dedicated group of friends and musicians with talent to spare, and a fanbase that grows larger with every day, every disc, and every download. And with Plans they’ve delivered a masterpiece.

Death Cab for Cutie formed in the mid ‘90s in the tiny college town of Bellingham, WA when ace engineering student and committed indierocker Ben Gibbard turned a freshly broken heart into nine songs he wasn’t embarrassed to share with someone else. He quickly hooked up with fledgling four-track producer (and fellow Teenage Fanclub fan) Chris Walla and bassist Nick Harmer, the most amiable (and comic-book obsessed) musician on campus. Christened Death Cab for Cutie (referencing a ‘60s song by Monty Python associates the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, so quit asking already!), the band released a cassette (ah, the 20th century!) of originals called You Can Play These Songs with Chords (ah, the 90s!). This led to Seattle-area buzz, which was good for an fuzzy and fresh album (1998’s Something About Airplanes) with burgeoning area indie Barsuk. Then came touring. And new drummers. And more touring. And a series of albums (including 2000’s We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes and 2001’s The Photo Album) that were each more successful – in content and sales – than the last. It was around this point that the three primary members of DCFC looked around and realized this wasn’t a college extracurricular anymore, this was a life. So they did what all sensible people do: they took a break. Chris returned to his first love, producing, working on widely hailed releases by The Decemberists, The Thermals, Nada Surf, and Travis Morrison. Ben spent some time in the L.A. neighborhood of Silver Lake recording electropop songs with his friend, producer Jimmy Tamborello. This little sideproject, called The Postal Service, released an album (Give Up) that has, to date, sold over 500,000 copies. But there was never any doubt about where Ben’s priorities where. Refreshed and renewed by their time apart – and inspired by the recruitment of ace new drummer Jason McGerr – Death Cab produced their most complete and mature work to date, the stunning Transatlanticism.The album was released in the fall of 2003 and almost immediately milestones began to fall like dominos: sales that flirted with Gold certification, successful tours of Japan and Australia, magazine features, TV appearances (including a memorable spring ’05 appearance on The OC, a program that can credit its entire cultural gestalt to Death Cab being Seth Cohen’s favorite band), and a personal invitation to join R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, and others on the Vote for Change tour. With so much accomplished and so much yet to do, the members of Death Cab decided to plunge right back into the studio and the result is the record of their still young careers. Says Harmer, “this album is very much a brother or a sister to Transatlanticism. Despite the title, we never sat down to plan it, it just came out – fully formed – from the momentum of our last two years.” He laughs immodestly, “I mean, we’re just getting really good!”

“And it came to me then, that every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time.”

Plans was recorded over 28 wintry and alcohol fueled days in early 2005 at Longview Studios, housed in a converted barn in Massachusetts. Chris Walla, as always, served as producer – and claims not to have seen daylight once during the recording. Perhaps that’s why he suddenly blurted out the album title to Harmer during a lull in conversation over burritos. (Fans of Gibbard’s favorite film, Noah Baumbach’s caustic college comedy Kicking and Screaming, will be crushed to know Plans isn’t, in fact, a tribute to one of the movie’s memorable lines: “You know how to make God laugh? Make a plan.”)

If Transatlanticism  -- with its agless refrain of “I need you so much closer” – ached over the distance, both literal and emotional, that sometimes springs up between two people, Plans concerns itself with the yawning gap that waits in front of us all: aging and eventual death. “All of us in the band are starting to turn a corner and realize our youth is basically over,” says the 29-year-old Gibbard. “That’s not a bad thing, it’s just that the feeling of invincibility begins to fall by the wayside. I’ve got a house now, a serious relationship. I’m becoming an adult! And for me, that means being aware of the slow process of losing people in your life.”

The album begins with the wide-eyed hope of “Marching Bands of Manhattan,” a gorgeous, sprialing song about living in the moment – or at least trying to. “I’m the sort of person that’s always dwelling on the destination rather than the journey,” Ben says. “Even when I’m in a great situation there’s always this moving thought that it all is going to have to end. ‘Marching Bands’ and the next song, ‘Soul Meets Body,’ are about me trying not to fall back into old habits.” Indeed, themes that begin in one song are continued throughout the album, building, piece by piece, into a satisfying emotional whole. On the chiming, addictive first single “Soul Meets Body,” Gibbard’s layered “ba-ba-bas” and the band’s subtly shifting instrumentation (based on a demo that Gibbard built around an “unnamed” sample) combine to transform a lyric about death (“and if the darkness takes you I hope it takes me too”) into one of the most romantic love songs he’s ever penned. That same morbid-yet-ecstatic Smiths-ian rapture pops up again in the haunting and bare “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” an acoustic folk number with a timeless lyric already called “better than most songs anyone has written” by the Seattle Times. It’s a credit to Walla’s prodigious gifts as a producer and arranger that both songs – one constructed, one untouched – feel equally rich in texture and fully alive.

Elsewhere, the sweaty and slinky “Summer Skin,” anchored by Harmer’s lascivious bass and McGerr’s relentless snare, relates a tale of a first love bookended by the seasons. “Different Names for the Same Thing” is both Gibbard’s favorite song on the album and its most musically adventurous. “It’s a simple thought, really,” he says. “It’s a song about travelling by yourself in a foreign country and the frustration of being isolated by language, even when you’re surrounded by people.” But when the story is over, the simplicity stops as well: the song suddenly bursts and blooms into a cacophony of multitracked vocals and frantic rhythms. “I see that ending as a hint or sneak preview of what I’d like to see more of on a following record,” Gibbard says.

The kaleidoscopic “Your Heart Is an Empty Room” and the jaunty “Crooked Teeth” each tackle themes of regret and renewal – the former with its vision of a cleansing fire and the latter with its sober take on a failed relationship – while the “Someday You Will Be Love” churns up the same waters as Transatlanticism’s bitter “Tiny Vessels” but this time with a more optimistic bent. But it’s with “What Sarah Said” that Plans reaches its emotional zenith – and ironically the song very nearly didn’t make the cut. “It stewed for a year and a half,” Gibbard says. “Originally the second verse pulled back out of the moment and told what happened before the hospital but the rest of the band said ‘no time travel!’ and convinced me that I need to continue the thought.” The song sets Gibbard’s heartbreaking story of being trapped in an emergency room “that reeks of piss and 409” waiting for news of a critically ill or injured loved one. It turns out that what Sarah actually said – “love is watching someone die” – is the thesis statement for the entire album. “The song was inspired by a friend of ours who sells merch for us on the road,” says Gibbard. “She was walking with her husband one day and just burst into hysterical tears because she realized that one day one of the two of them would have to watch the other die.” Only a songwriter as dextrous as Gibbard could make a tearjerking refrain about the end of love (“so who’s going to watch you die?”) sound as effortless and bright as falling in love in the first place.

Plans concludes with “Brothers In Hotel Beds,” which finds Gibbard transforming Walla’s warm and wistful melody into another reflection on age and aging and, finally, “Stable Song,” a clear-eyed ode to the quiet life. “Our longevity and history come through a lot on this record,” says Harmer. “There’s now an unspoken trust and communication between all four of us, a great flow. All we had to do was not interrupt it!”

Plans is is a shockingly beautiful and mature album from a group that itself is still maturing. Death Cab for Cutie is that rare band that isn’t afraid to tackle the big thought, to wrestle with the complex, never black and white realities of human interaction. This isn’t emo – this is emotional. From its soaring beginning to its somber end, Plans is the sound of growing up, of gaining friends and losing them, of realizing, perhaps for the first time, the weight and consequences of every decision we make, of every heart we touch. It is an album about growing old that can grow old with us. “I feel like our album is a complete thought,” says Harmer with pride in his voice. “Hopefully it’s 45 minutes that can block out the din of life, make you put your phone down and provide some solace.” You heard the man: set the phone to “silent,” and the stereo to “play.” And we promise you won’t need to take our word(s) for it anymore.

OK Go
It's winter in Malmö, the Swedish industrial town where OK Go has come to record their second album for Capitol Records. The band is excited but wary. They've just spent two exhausting years touring the globe, and another six months back home, writing and rejecting more than sixty new songs. The writing process was grueling, but fruitful: OK Go came up with a collection of demos so strong they grabbed the attention of super-producer Tore Johansson, the hugely sought-after man behind Franz Ferdinand's debut album and the Cardigans' hits.

Tore s first words are gruff. "When you are finished with a take," he tells them in his half-menacing, half-hilarious Swedish accent," I will not come running into the studio smiling and waving my arms like some American producer. If I say something is OK, it is perfect. If I say nothing, you will do it again until I tell you stop." Tore spends ten minutes deriding the cookie-cutter slickness of America, home of editing systems smarter than the people who use them. It will be much simpler here, Tore assures them. "You will go into a room together and you will rock."

And rock they did. The result is Oh No, an album that absolutely explodes out of the speakers. Where other bands bomb out or bloat up on their second albums, OK Go has tightened the screws and trimmed the fat, delivering a stripped-down, revved-up forty-two minutes of wild, propulsive rock and roll. It's a worthy follow-up to their 2002 debut, which established OK Go as expert craftsmen of intelligent, ultra-catchy rock songs. If that album was the mischievous class president-smart and popular and sexy, and not as innocent as he seems - then Oh No is the same kid after he's spent a lurid summer in bedrooms and bar fights all over town.

There's a rougher grit to Oh No. From the chaotic torrent of crashing guitars that launches "Invincible," the anthemic lead track, to the acidic chorus of "The House Wins," the album's stinging final song ("You don't have to be alone to be lonely.. you might as well give in"), the album surges with electricity. It's in the center-stage cowbell and cocky classic-rock riff of "Do What You Want," and the feverish, new wave rush of "Here It Goes Again."

But that energy doesn't obscure the wit, melody, and unabashed joy that brought the band this far. "A Good Idea at the Time" delivers a swaggering, line-for-line response to the Stones classic, "Sympathy for the Devil," transforming those famous "ooh-oohs" into tortured little taunts. Right on its heels is "Oh Lately It's So Quiet," a beautifully delicate - and unstoppably sexy - ghost story. Just a few songs later, we're taken somewhere else, slinking across the dance floor to the sleazy disco-era Clash beat of "A Million Ways."

Anyone who has witnessed the exhilaration of the band's live show will recognize the frenetic drive at the heart of Oh No. "We wanted to make an album that sounds like our band, and not a heady, self-conscious studio project," says lead singer Damian Kulash. "Everyone tells us rock and roll is a shadow of itself - a sad old milk cow smiling at the farmer every morning. We still see a bucking bull smashing around the stable."

The band's energy doesn't stop at the edge of the stage or the end of the disc. From the influential how-to guide they published for bands hoping to unseat President Bush (you should have seen the avalanche of hate mail that won them), to the monthly column they wrote for a Japanese rock magazine, to their tour of America as house band for public radio program This American Life, OK Go always seems to find a new corner of the world to explore and make their own. With Oh No, they're coming after yours.