DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE

"PLANS"

Review Date: 08/15/05

Rating: 10/10

Rewiewed By: suj

THE REVIEW:
I'll admit it, the first time I had ever heard about Death Cab for Cutie was from the television show The OC with its subtle name drops that spewed form the mouth of the iconic character Seth Cohen. Soon After, I picked up several of their albums and from the get go I was awed at the brilliance that spoke through my speakers. I loved “Transatlanticism” and I loved “The Photo Album” even more with its track "A Movie Script Ending" becoming my theme song and aiding itself to several of my projects. As for the their new album, "Plans", I loved it as much as I loved “The Photo Album”, it hangs in the rafters of the bands burgeoning catalogue of tunes and shall be deemed a bright spot in their career of lyrical conundrums.

The album opens with the sounds of church organs which are then accompanied by Gibbard's soft touched vocals and the slow strumming of a guitar. It is here in this moment where I relished the joy of music that longed in the gap between this album and “Transatlanticism”. The song is "Marching Bands of Manhattan" and it sets the tone of the experience to come. In fact, all the songs play nicely and set a mood of calming relaxation and sorted romance backed by on-lookers desperate to feel that intangible feeling when one listens to an album like this. "Different Names for the Same Thing," has such an utter beautiful opening which should expel a tingling sensation to ones soul. My favorite track is "I Will Follow You into the Dark," which sounds like it could have been sung by the late great Elliot Smith. I'm sure that my favorite track off, “Plans”, will change from time to time, but the fact that I’ve been listening to Elliot Smith for weeks on end before listening to this album played into my initial determining factor. The song itself is Gibbard and the strumming of a guitar taking about romance that will bloom, "if heaven and hell decide that they are both satisfied." It’s just beautiful and I don't know what else to say to explain my adoration of the song. I also enjoyed "Someday You Will Be Loved", with its signature slow build to its massive big ending.

"What Sarah Said" is a gut-wrenching tale of love and loss that is told in complete sentence songwriting. This is the best song on the album. It has an ability to bring you to place of mesmeric romantics like a really good old movie that for some reason you’ve never heard about and when you watch it you fall in love with it. The song builds and builds until you to finally hear Gibbard spew out the lyric, "What Sarah Said", and right then and there its like that climatic moment from that old movie you've fallen in love with, it’s heart-breaking as it is beautiful. It is then all followed up by the lyric, "Love is watching someone die. Who's gonna watch you die?", which plays like the fading music form the very last scene of that old movie as the camera pans back and the images begin to fade away slowly until you are left in the dark. "Brothers on a Hotel Bed" is the first song in the Death Cab catalog that wasn't written by Ben Gibbard, but instead by guitarist and the album producer Chris Walla. The song sticks out from the bunch not because of the said fact, but because it feels like a bright shining star in already glaring sky filled with bright stars. The album ends with a re-working of one of Death Cabs older songs, "Stability", aptly renamed "Stable Song". It is still as moving and it is still as majestic.

And that is how Death Cab leaves us, they leave with their feelings of stability. They sound energized, but comfortable in their own skin. Death Cab has given it their best shot with "Plans." And all I’m asking is for all of you to give it a spin or not, because it really doesn't matter as the music will speak for itself.