Victims of the Fool's Day

After their major label debut Plans in 2005, quartet Death Cab For Cutie went on a temporal hiatus. The reason for this was the passion of their soloist Ben Gibbard to work entirely over his side-project The Postal Service. Nevertheless, Bellingham indie-pop command, which recommended itself so well this the previous work, decided to refresh their glory on the mainstream waves and gathered in the studio to record a new attempt Narrow Stairs. In March 2008, the band released the first single from their disc - I Will Possess Your Heart. The listeners did not have to be told twice that the new album by Death Cab For Cutie is worthy to buy. On the 31 of March, it was rumored that the album leaked into the Internet in its entirety. To the deserved disappointment of the dirty-handed fans, who loaded all the tracks, it proved to be the April Fool's joke! On that bootleg titled Narrow Stairs, only freshly released I Will Possess Your Heart belonged to the pen of Death Cab For Cutie, while all the other were performed by one command, similar to Death Cab For Cutie in sound and song topics. It is clear that the band members were not aware of this event. Therefore, in May 2008 the fans can appreciate the officially released album that was talked much about before its issue.

Narrow Stairs: the darkest album by the band

When the single I Will Possess Your Heart was released, one could say easily that this album if the darkest for the whole history of Death Cab For Cutie. This experimental track, lasting for more than eight minutes, is an apocryphal and mesmerizing instrumental improvisation - Gibbard's voice appears only in the middle of the song. Bixby Canyon Bridge became one more vocalist's dedication to Jack Kerouac - everyone, interested in this band, knows that Ben Gibbard admires the novels by this American writer and has already wrote about this rich personality in several songs from their previous albums. No Sunlight entered the disc as the classical tune by Death Cab For Cutie, it is a romantic and tense song with a catchy tune, deserving to become a sure hit, while Cath… is very characteristic of Gibbard's lyrics - it narrates of the woman, who married a wrong man. On the latter track Ben's high tenor sounds especially piercing and touching. You Can Do Better Than Me is the laconic stylization for pop of 60's. The Narrow Stairs album closes with the anxious track The Ice Is Getting Thinner with sharp, full of witty self-revelations lyrics. All the songs of this long-play are united with the theme of suffering soul and parting, thus stylistically Narrow Stairs is comprehended as the whole album, not just a number of diverse songs.

One more step forward for Death Cab For Cutie

The new edition by this command is not just good - for now it is the highest degree of evolution for Death Cab For Cutie. The musicians began as a little band, but after they left Barsuk Records they made a significant progress on the album Plans both in their sound and album composition. Their sophomore attempt on major label can be called without exaggeration one more step forward on their creative way. United with definite topics, Narrow Stairs would no way disappoint the listeners in its quality. It should be noted that on this full-length one could find the sound imperfections, so characteristic of the indie-pop style, but they do not leave you sour about it - on the contrary, they remind of the roots of Death Cab For Cutie. Compared to the previous works, Narrow Stairs is grimmer, but it has place left for romance and hope - it can be felt in Gibbard's voice and song melodies. Moreover, serious topics of the songs show the inner growth of soloist and major lyricist of Death Cab For Cutie - which means that the band is far from the creative stupor. The only wish is that Ben's attitude towards the world got lighter - while in all other aspects the band is supreme.

Ninelle Kazakoff
16.05.2008