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.

1. “Bixby Canyon Bridge” [mp3]
2. “I Will Possess Your Heart” [youtube]
3. “No Sunlight” [mp3]
4. “Cath…” [mp3]
5. “Talking Bird”
6. “You Can Do Better Than Me” [mp3]
7. “Grapevine Fires”
8. “Your New Twin Sized Bed”
9. “Long Division”
10. “Pity and Fear”
11. “The Ice Is Getting Thinner”

Official Site / Myspace / Pre-Order
More songs at the Hype Machine

Neon Golden, the 2002 Notwist classic, was one of those albums I obsessed over. I remember it being in the background for the latter part of my high school days and all throughout college. I studied to it, slept to it, took road trips to it, and now still, six years later, I find myself putting it on when I read or am driving around. My love for the subtle electronic rock genre popularized by Postal Service began with that Notwist album. Long before the Postal Service came around, there was Notwist.

So, you can imagine my excitement when I saw their new album shining there amongst this year’s upcoming releases. I honestly couldn’t believe it. It’s not like they haven’t been active since Neon Golden, starting the side project 13 & God with the band Themselves, and scoring a German film called Distant Lights, but nothing new came out of the Notwist camp all those years so all I had to keep from forgetting about them was Neon Golden. Thankfully that’s not the case anymore. The Devil, You + Me follows nicely in Neon Golden’s footsteps, treading calmly and precisely through electronic rock landscapes, never getting in the way of whatever you’re doing, but still remaining intriguingly impossible to ignore. The opener “Good Lies” was a bit surprising at first, being more jangly guitar driven than electronic driven, but “Where in This World” follows with the Notwist I’ve always known and loved. One thing Notwist have always done well is blend orchestral and electronic elements effortlessly and “Where in This World” is a shining example of this. It’s reminiscent of “Off the Rails” from Neon Golden. “Gloomy Planets” has an interstellar pop quality to it and it’s one of those songs you know some trendy marketing firm will use for a Yaris car commercial as the car flies through space and flowers are blooming everywhere.

“Alphabet” is a bit more chaotic than most the songs on the album, with glitchiness, fuzz, and beats galore. The title track is one of the best on the album and is right up there with “Where in this World”. The rest of the album keeps up that subtle, calming quality all the way until the last guitar strum fades away during the great guitar and piano led “Gone, Gone, Gone”. By the time the album is finished, the silence becomes quite alarming out of nowhere when you realize the whole album came and went and even though it faded into your subconscious while you drove/read/cleaned/etc, you still find yourself quickly hitting repeat to hear the comforting sounds of the subtle driving guitar intro of “Good Lies”. Maybe that’s just what happens when I listen to this new Notwist album, but I’m guessing it’ll happen to a few of you out there. Notwist are finally back, and their follow-up that’s six years in the making is right up there with Neon Golden. That’s a pretty bold statement, but I’ll welcome The Devil, You + Me into my Notwist collection anyday. It’ll never eclipse Neon Golden, but even coming close is good enough for me.

The Devil, You + Me is released in the States in June on Domino Records and early next month in the UK through City Slang.
Notwist

The Devil, You + Me
Perch Score: 8.999

1. “Good Lies”
   
2. “Where in the World”
   
3. “Gloomy”
4. “Alphabet”
5. “The Devil, You & Me”
6. “Gravity”
7. “Sleep”
8. “On Planet Off”
9. “Boneless”
10. “Hands on Us”
11. “Gone Gone Gone”

Official Site / Myspace

Bonus song from Neon Golden:

Pick Up the Phone

Off the Rails

I missed Stereogum’s exclusive mp3 from Wolf Parade’s newest album last week. It’s definitely an interesting direction for the band, who recorded long improvisational sessions in the Arcade Fire owned cathedral after scrapping five or so new songs since they sounded too much like Apologies. After a few listens to “Call It A Ritual”, I can safely say the album’s going to be great in a strange way if that song is any indication. I’ve actually had a collection of live songs I came across not too long ago called “Kissing the Beehive Live Compilation” and I figured I’d throw some of those live songs in the mix as well. The names in that compilation are almost all different, since it was always only rumored which songs would make the cut, and now that I think of it, I bet a bunch of those on that live comp were some of the ones scrapped, because they do sound very similar in style to their last effort. If the couple live songs end up not being correct once the album is finally out 6/17 on Sub Pop, don’t get mad at me. One is called “Soldier”, so I’m guessing that’s “Soldier’s Grin”, and the other is “Fine Young Cannibals”, which seems obvious enough.

01 “Soldier’s Grin” [live mp3]

02 “Call It A Ritual” [mp3]

03 “Language City”
04 “Bang Your Drum”
05 “California Dreamer”
06 “The Grey Estates”
07 “Fine Young Cannibals” [live mp3]

08 “An Animal In Your Care”
09 “Kissing The Beehive”

Still unnamed LP #2 by Wolf Parade out 6/17 on Sub Pop. Name was rumored to be “Kissing the Beehive”, but I guess not now? I don’t know if the following song is one of the above renamed or maybe a scrapped song, but I like it.

Stevie [live mp3]

…rest after the jump.

If you’re a frequent Perch reader, then you know I often commit all kinds of crimes of musical hyperbole with my exaggerated descriptions for the albums I love and statements like “If you like the Beatles, times their greatness by 15 and you’ve got (insert band’s name I currently love)”. But with this review, I’ll do my best to keep a level head while trying to describe what very well could end up being my #1 album of the year. It may sound crazy to say this early in the year, but I felt the same way about The Meaning of 8 and it ended up at #2 on the list. I said with Boris Yeltsin’s Pershing that if something came along and dethroned it from my top spot, it’d have to be one heck of an album, and not two weeks later Cloud Cult’s album is blasting as I sat at my computer smiling and shaking my head. So, two weeks from now will I be listening to something that tops Cloud Cult’s new album? Well, if that ends up happening, then I want to meet that band and shake their hands, because they will have created an album I’ll be listening to for years to come.

So what’s so fancy and great about Feel Good Ghosts that it’s got me all worked up? To start, take all the orchestration elements from their past album, which made me love them in the first place since that’s my jam right there, and double it for this new one. “When Water Comes to Life” has a minute and a half full orchestra intro. Are you kidding?! The intro dies down, Chris Minowa starts singing softly over the same full orchestra sound until everything just keeps getting louder and louder and the song ends after a huge full band rock-out session.

Besides that immediate shining example, the album both begins and ends perfectly. It begins with “No One Said It Would Be Easy”, which mixes a pulsing synth part with echoed piano in a very Cloud Cult sounding way, and just like “When Water Comes to Life”, the intro dies down to let the main verse come in, only to continue building until the drums, synth, piano, strings, guitar, and Minowa himself are all just going crazy. The end is just as perfect for the opposite reasons as “I Love You All” is a gentle ode from Minowa to his family and fans. The only line is “I love my mother/I love my father/When it’s my time to go/I need you to know/I love you all”. And the first half sounds like he’s singing through a vocoder, much like Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek”, then by the end the full orchestra is in full gear, there’s the whole band singing it, and the drums and guitar are all in epic mode. It’s probably the best ending to a Cloud Cult album yet.

There’s always a theme with every Cloud Cult album and this one is no different. The name is entirely appropriate as most songs talk about ghosts of all kinds in our lives, both good and bad. The ones from our past we can’t escape. The ghosts that watch over us every day. And even the concept that we “came up from the ground” and will “return back to the water from where we’re all born” as ghosts ourselves. I noticed a lot of lines are repeated throughout the album like the idea that we came from the ground from a million different pieces. That’s in a few songs. Ghosts are obviously all over the album, and life beginning and ending as water is a common theme as well.

Besides the amazing use of orchestra and equally amazing lyrics, which Minowa can always be counted on, most Cloud Cult cynics will find themselves pleasantly surprised to see that this new album is just under 40 minutes and is only 13 songs. Two of which are little instrumentals. I know a hand full of people that dislike Cloud Cult for falling into the Sufjan curse having almost 20 songs on both The Meaning of 8 and Advice from the Happy Hippo. I agree that is a bit excessive, but I never seemed to mind much since it was all usually good, which is a feat in itself releasing an album with nearly 20 songs and 95% of the album you don’t want to skip.

Feel Good Ghosts does have it’s share of strange songs, like any Cloud Cult album. “The Tornado Lessons” would be the prime example of a truly strange song, but I still really like it. The back-up vocals throughout the song are stolen straight from Alvin and the Chipmunks, almost like they were having too much fun playing with pitch shifting vocals in the studio and ended up just keeping some of it. “It’s What You Need” is a really short yell fest with the whole band rocking out for just over a minute yelling the title over and over. But as strange as those two songs may sound to read about, Minowa and the gang still make you want to listen to those on repeat too just because there’s strings all over them and crazy good drums.

And let’s talk about the drums on this new album too. I’ve always noticed they mixed real drums with computer beats in the most creative ways and I think this new one has my favorite drums yet. Whether it’s simple orchestral crashing drums, or glitched out drums that switch back and forth from speaker to speaker like in “Hurricane and Fire Survival Guide”, the drumming always impresses and is a major part to nearly every song and has always been a staple of Cloud Cult’s sound. Once my band gets in the studio here sometime soon to record, I have a good feeling we’ll end up being very Cloud Cult about it mixing my acoustic rock sound with eletronic elements, background vocals, and creative drums.

Someone told me the other night after having them listen to this new album that my songs sounded a lot like Cloud Cult if I went nuts adding strings and all that other stuff to my songs, and while I took that as a pretty good compliment, I couldn’t help but think that it probably was inevitable I’d have some Cloud Cult influence to my songs. I listen to their music so much, and Feel Good Ghosts isn’t doing anything favors either as it’s yet another addition to my Cloud Cult collection I love, slightly obsess over, and have everyone I know listening to it with me by the end of the day. It’s rare in my little indie music world inside my head to find a band that I consistently love release after release and Cloud Cult have become just that. I’ve gone back and re-read what I just wrote, since I usually just write stream of consciousness style with my posts, and the crimes of musical hyperbole are all over it, but what can you do? I love this band, and Feel Good Ghosts may end up being my favorite album of theirs yet.

Release date: April 8th on Earthology Records

1. “No One Said It Would Be Easy” *
2. “Everybody Here Is a Cloud” [mp3]
   
3. “The Tornado Lessons”
4. “When Water Comes to Life” [mp3]
   
5. “Must Explore”
6. “Journey of the Featherless” *
7. “The Ghost Inside Our House”
8. “It’s What You Need”
9. “Story of the Grandson of Jesus” *
10. “Hurricane and Fire Survival Guide” *
11. “May Your Hearts Stay Strong”
12. “The Will of a Volcano”
13. “Love You All”[mp3]
    

Official Site / Myspace / Pre-order the album
More at the hype machine

*recommended listens if you go the hype machine route

SSLYBY are some of the nicest, down to Earth guys you’ll ever meet. You think I’m nice and happy all the time, well, hang out with the guys from Boris Yeltsin and you’ll soon learn it’s possible to have even happier, nicer people than me. Now that I think about it, maybe it’s just the town we live in, because the kids around here are pretty dang nice for the most part. Both the Boris Yeltsin guys and myself reside here in our little college town of Springfield, MO. I guess it’s not that small, but it’s a college town none-the-less. This results in most the local bands, the decent ones at least, developing decent fanbases in town in an unusually short amount of time. Everyone here either plays music or makes art. It’s a strange thing, but it makes being a musician that much better.

Rest of the early listen review after the jump!

I didn’t hang out with Phil or John or any of the other guys in the band until later in my college days, and when I was in Seattle doing the Sub Pop internship, I hung out with them all night after they opened for Sound Team at the Croc down the street. It was a great time and even though I’d seen them countless times and there weren’t any longtime fans at the show to sing the “Whoaaa!” background vocal parts, it was still a great show.

Fast forward a year and a half and we find them finally releasing their long awaited follow-up on their new label Polyvinyl. Most the songs they played for that Seattle show were from this new album. And that was back in Summer of 2006, so while most people reading blogs will only just now hear about them as they’re blowing up, it’s kind of nice knowing I’ve been there for at least three years of their musical journey long before they were ever blog darlings.

Broom, their debut, was a good album, but the fact they recorded it in their attic coupled with the fact I’d seen them more times than I could count led to me barely ever listening to it and skipping over it to listen to something else. “House Fire” I came back to time and time again, but not the album. All that time I hoped and prayed they would get a more polished sound now that they were on a label, and while I was sorely disappointed by Polyvinyl not re-recording Broom and just re-releasing it, with Pershing, their new album, I can finally sleep peacefully. The album, to say it plainly, is absolutely fantastic. Both in production value and songwriting.

I’ve never been more proud of a band in my life, and after at least 20 listens through, I can safely say this will undoubtedly end up in my top five albums of the year. It’s that good. And that’s strange to me putting my friends’ band’s album that high on a year end list.

I could talk about each song in depth, as there’s barely anything here to skip. “Glue Girls” is their first single and features an intertwining guitar bridge/break down that’s well known here in town, as they’ve played it forever. “Modern Mystery” finds the Whoaaa!’s we’d all yelled along with finally making it to the studio. “Some Constellation” is one of the softer songs, but very well could be the best song on the album with it’s great harmonies and subtle build up. “Think I Wanna Die” is, dare I say it, right up there with anything the Shins have written and I stand behind that 100%.

“You Could Write a Book” sounds almost like a Boris Yeltsin/Spoon collab, with distant, echoed lead vocals. Finally, there’s “Heers”. The Heers Tower here in town has been abandoned for quite some time, and lyrics talking about growing older and missing someone from the old days could be about times as a kid sneaking into Heers tower with your big dreams and girl next to you. Of course, that’s a ridiculous assumption, so don’t quote me on that at all. But I’ve put that song on repeat for 30 straight minutes while working on our contracts for LemonDrop and never once did I think, yeah, maybe it’s time to change songs.

If it weren’t for tomorrow’s album, I would say that I’d be surprised if any album could top Pershing. It’s that good and that easy to listen to all the way through that, even after over two weeks having it, I still find myself wanting to listen to it the minute I get home to my computer. I’ll keep tomorrow’s album a secret, since I’m simply blown away by it, but listen now. You heard it on the Perch first. Come April 8th when Pershing is released, SSLYBY will take the indie music world by storm. Pitchfork will love it, the bloggers will go nuts for it, and they’ll end up in SPIN yet again. I can’t wait for the world to hear it and if they somehow stumble upon my little blog today, well, congrats guys. The new album is amazing. I couldn’t be happier with how it ended up.

Glue Girls

Think I Wanna Die

More mp3’s at the Hype Machine (I’d recommend Some Constellation, Modern Mystery, and Heers if you can find it. The first two I know are on there)

Short making of… video
[youtube J2moIna6j80]
Official Site / Myspace / Pre-order Pershing / Polyvinyl
Daytrotter Live Set (featuring an early version of Modern Mystery)