New album review: Death Cab for Cutie’s ‘Plans’

We just got Death Cab for Cutie’s Atlantic records on eMusic (Plans, Narrow Stairs and the Open Door EP), and I reviewed Plans, which I probably listened to more than anything else during my freshman year of college (that made it sorta tough to write about).

eMusic review:

After Death Cab for Cutie’s 2003 album Transatlanticism led to countless song placements in TV shows and films, it seemed like a natural progression for the band to leave longtime indie Barsuk for a major label — Atlantic. (Adding to the band’s high profile: Give Up — the debut LP from the Postal Service, Death Cab frontman Ben Gibbard’s project with Dntel’s Jimmy Tamborello — had been released only months before.) Transatlanticism had been the group’s cleanest work to date — lush, cinematic layers of sound had replaced the subtle fuzz that used to loom over every track — and Plans follows a similar formula. But where Transatlanticism was about the past — breakups, memories, long-distance relationships — Plans finds Gibbard looking to the future. Ultimately, it’s a question of who’s going to love you and, therefore, who’s going to watch you die. That’s to say: The lyrics haven’t gotten much happier, but the band’s found its sound and is sticking to it.

Several of the songs revolve around love after death: In the ethereal single “Soul Meets Body,” Gibbard sings “If the silence takes you/ Then I hope it takes me too;” in the stripped-down-acoustic “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” he croons, “If there’s no one beside you/ When your soul embarks/ I will follow you into the dark;” and in the grim, piano-driven hospital song, it’s “Love is watching someone die/ So who’s going to watch you die?” as his character paces the waiting room. It might sound grim, but Gibbard’s never been one for conventional happy endings.

Though Plans is missing rock anthems akin to Transatlanticism‘s “The New Year” and “The Sound of Settling,” its sound is just as a massive — much of which can be attributed to Chris Walla’s increasingly sharp production work. Opening track “Marching Bands of Manhattan” begins with a stuttering reverbed guitar and an organ, then a series of steady chords and tambourine shakes before the drums and bass kick in. “What Sarah Said” is founded on arpeggioed, sometimes-layered piano chords; in “Your Heart Is An Empty Room,” an organ warps together with shakers and slowly-building electronics. There are no big surprises on this go-around, and maybe Plans sounded, in a way, like settling. But what it really did was lay the groundwork — and give them the audience — for the experimentation that came next.