The Pelican’s Perch

Perch Early Listen - Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs

Posted by Kevin
May 6, 2008

After hearing “Bixby Canyon Bridge” for the first time, quite possibly the best opening song of ‘08, it’s hard not to just throw up your arms then and claim victory. Death Cab have done it! All the hype and talk that while this one was different than their others, it may be their best ever was true. Yeah, it would be easy to do that. But alas, there’s 10 more songs on this album and I only wish they were all as good as the opening song.

So, right off the bat I’ve told you Narrow Stairs isn’t their best album. Does that mean I don’t like it? Not at all. Like any album I have crazy high expectations for, it usually doesn’t satisfy, but almost always grows into a keeper as I listen to it more. There was no doubt I’d like this album. I mean, it’s Death Cab, and no matter how far they “stray” from their normal formula, something I’ve read over and over about this album, you know it’s still going to be vintage Death Cab. And that’s what this album is, only they’ve gone a slightly less accessible to radio route that taps into their past, often sounding a lot like Something About Airplanes if they had a much better recording studio to record in back then.

Wikipedia has some guy at MTV quoted saying this album was “unquestionably the best thing [Death Cab has] ever done” and Rolling Stone saying it’s “a dark, strangely compelling record that trades the group’s bright melancholy for something nearer to despair”. I’d focus more on the Rolling Stone quote, as that pretty much nails it. Narrow Stairs is a lot darker than Plans or Transatlanticism, both musically and lyrically. “Your New Twin Sized Bed”, one of my immediate favorites on this album, talks of someone lying in bed depressed and lonely in their new twin sized bed they just got, since a queen sized was simply too big now that they were alone. It’s clever like most Gibbard lyrics, but definitely sad.

The thing with Narrow Stairs that gets me most is that the stand-out songs really stand out. They’re great, and a few are some of the best Death Cab have written. “I Will Possess Your Heart” is 8 1/2 minutes and is great the whole way through. “Bixby Canyon Blues” may make my top 10 songs list at the end of the year, and “Cath…” is the main song that makes you step back and say, wow, that sounds exactly like Something Like Airplanes.

“No Sunlight” is one of the only songs on this new one that could fit on Transatlanticism easily. “You Can Do Better Than Me” is a strange piano romp that is just kind of there in the middle of the album, and I can’t help but wonder what it would sound like if Man Man got their hands on it. Then, there’s “Talking Bird”, a slow, slow song that I honestly have only gotten the whole way through when I’m playing it at work and the radio’s way out of reach. It’s not bad per se, but it’s not slow in a good way like “Passenger Seat” or “I Will Follow You Into the Dark”. It falls more along the lines of “Stable Song”, which goes nowhere for 3+ minutes and just bogs the album down out of nowhere. Only in this album’s case, it’s not the album closer, so I find myself skipping it a lot.

What I think it ultimately comes down to with Narrow Stairs is that I fall under the “might be turned off by the drastic new direction” section of fans. Many of you may agree with me, many of you may openly welcome the new, darker, slower, less happy Death Cab and love this album. I’ve gotten plenty of mixed reactions from friends so far, some in love with it, some giving the ol’ “eh, it’s alright” reaction. Since I have to to formulate my reaction into a review, it obviously bothers me a bit more that I don’t love this album and that it’ll have to “grow on me” as I’ve said before. But, for all the negative I noticed I’ve written so far, it’s still a great album. You can tell they said screw it, and just wrote whatever they wanted, even though a lot of it was different than what gave them such success before.

Narrow Stairs will never be Plans, Trans, or The Photo Album for me, and won’t get the best album title a few critics have slapped onto this album, but it’ll definitely get a strong recommendation from me. Most of you will like it like me, some will simply love it, but I doubt too many of you will dislike it. It’s a great album that’ll probably make my top 25 without a doubt, but it’s somewhat of a shame to be sitting here wondering what could have been if the quality of the first two songs could have been heard throughout the rest of Narrow Stairs. That, my friends, will end up being the lasting impression most of you will be left with once all is said and done.

Death Cab For Cutie
Narrow Stairs
Release: May 13, 2008
Perch Score: 7.899

Note: These are just links to the mp3’s posted at other blogs. I’m not posting any songs off this leak yet. You kidding me? Want me to get arrested? Alright, that may be a bit exaggerated, but I’d rather point you to the songs than host them myself. Simple as that.