Ok, so here I am listening to the new Death Cab album. Here's a little background: the boys and I had a little falling out right about the time of plans, although it kind of started before that. Anyway, I've spent the past few years saying nothing will ever make me excited about Death Cab for Cutie again. Then something does. It's a new album, recorded entirely on analog. Described "dark, scary, with lots of reverb." The First single (8:00 minutes), whcih burns itself right into your skull, and snakes around like a Rudyard Kipling cobra before flaring its hood into an honestly gutwrenching plea, beyond the regular Gibbard-crooner faire. Quite a feat. I'm excited.

I can honestly say I would have expected slightly less from them for redemption, even though at the time I set the bar awfully high. I can't seem to find that place to press "pause" in the album so you can conveniently do some menial task.

Ben Gibbard gets personal redemption for proving not to be a Kerouac fan just for fashion, and capturing the hallucinogenic ether in which I experience Big Sur, and condensing it into a shoegazing dreamscape of guitars, bass, and drums. If you get it, you get it, so I won't bother trying to explain it.

There's some truly creative spots on this album. I guess I should give Ben Gibbard a little bit more credit (I always just assumed him to be the cutesy face whose songs Chris Walla rescued). A personal favorite moment is the straight up Kevin-Shields-guitar rip in Talking Bird, twisted around Death Cabified™ into a new slurry. Right after that, it spins us around and confronts us with a marching-beat pop song. Then, before the WTF-factor even begins to wear off, it flows into one of the most striking songs on the album, Grapevine Fires. I can't help feeling that it sounds kind of like the Eagles, if there were a good way for Death Cab to sound like the Eagles (I fully expect people to think I'm crazy on this one).

Speaking of things people will call me crazy for, I get a distinct Fugazi and/or Pinback vibe from
Your New Twin Size Bed.

The point is, expect more than a couple curved balls your way. Relax. Go with them. If you fight it, you'll have a bad trip. There's ones I won't even allude to here. You get to find them all yourself. Now go and do it so we can have something to talk about.