Death Cab Wants You So Much Closer
In the olden days of the post-grunge 1990s, there was indie rock and there was mainstream rock, and never the twain did meet.
Transatlanticism, the fourth album by Washington-based Death Cab for Cutie, sinks all such notions like an iceberg hitting an ocean liner 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. And, tellingly, this collection of expansive, earnest songcraft might well attract the same kind of fans who really, really loved that 1997 movie about said ocean liner.
"Transatlanticism," according to the band's press release, is a made-up word indicating "distances so vast and daunting that they seem impossible to breach". Though the lyrics describe mostly physical distances -- "I could travel just by folding a map" -- singer-songwriter Ben Gibbard's undeniably strong melodies might actually toss a lifeline to the sinking, commercially floundering mainstream. It's an opportunity for "pop" and "indie" to meet in a way they haven't since, well, the last time Washington-based bands were big.
Disclaimer: Death Cab is hardly the next Nirvana, and Transatlanticism is certainly no Nevermind. It's actually closer to Keep It Like a Secret, a pop-flavored masterpiece by fellow Pacific Northwest indie-rock group Built to Spill, always a clear influence on the Death Cab sound. Still, it's not overly clever to suggest that the often overly clever band's new album describes not only geographic distance, but also to the vast psychological space separating its soon-to-be-divided fan base: those who will soon see Gibbard on MTV2, and longtime listeners.
"I don't want to be an indie-rock band," Gibbard told me in a recent interview. Although the new CD is still on Seattle indie label Barsuk, Gibbard has made his wish come true: It's almost impossible to describe Transatlanticism without calling it "the band's most accessible work to date."
Yet that tired cliche usually characterizes either the most articulate expression of a band's vision -- a true masterpiece -- or a piece of supremely insipid radio fodder. With lyrical musings that occasionally come off like ninth-grade poetry ("The glove compartment isn't accurately named / and everybody knows it / so I'm proposing a swift, orderly change") and overlong eight-minute "epic" (the title track), Transatlanticism is far from perfect. But it's not the band's Liz Phair turn, either.
Everything about the record is pure Death Cab: eloquent, introspective, and tinged with a resignation tempered only by a sense of vague optimism: "This is fact not fiction, for the first time in years," the record closes. Between that ambiguously uplifting epilogue and the opening lines, from the band's most radio-ready track, "The New Year" -- "this is the New Year, and I don't feel any different" -- Gibbard navigates familiar subject matter, albeit adrift in the great aural distances imposed by Walla's most ambitious production yet.
Strange noises hum throughout the subtly sexy "Lightness", as Gibbard sings of "sneaking glances" through a torn dress. "Death of an Interior Decorator" is practically an Elliott Smith song, with its Beatlesy melody and melismatic hook over typically intricate Gibbard lyrics. "Passenger Seat" returns to the travel motif amid piano chords worthy of a more reverb-heavy Ben Folds, but again the lyrics focus on a complicated interpersonal relationship. "I strain to tell the difference between shooting stars and satellites," Gibbard says, already seeking to distinguish "fiction" from the "fact" he will find two tracks later.
In the end, Gibbard really doesn't "feel any different". Much of the content picks up where previous long-distance love song "A Movie-Script Ending" left off. And despite the frontman's acclaimed turn with electropop unit the Postal Service, only a few drum loops and unrecognizable instruments, mostly in "Title and Registration", reveal any electronic influence -- and none go further than the band did on 2000's Forbidden Love EP with synth-heavy "Photobooth".
For all its aforementioned weaknesses, the sprawling title track is a key chapter in this mini-novel. As endlessly repetitive chords convey the unbreachable space, Gibbard gives voice to his main theme: "I need you so much closer." It's hardly "all you need is love", but at least it's coherent -- how many albums can really claim that?
Though the two bands' sensibilities are far different, Transatlanticism is the perfect next step for former Dashboard Confessional fans. Did you like Dashboard at first but then grow out of it? Maybe you got a significant other, started reading some J.D. Salinger novellas, or even started your first wimpy baby-steps toward self-confidence? You're about to fall in love with Death Cab for Cutie.
But for old-school Death Cab supporters, it's gut-check time: Did you like these guys for their "rock" or their "indie"? While the secret is out, the music is still too emotionally honest and infectiously witty to hold at a distance.
— 14 October 2003
