DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE
Three years after 2015’s Kintsugi , Seattle’s Death Cab for Cutie are releasing their first album as a quintet, Thank You for Today . Founding guitarist/producer Chris Walla left the band following the recording of Kintsugi and didn’t tour that album, but Thank You for Today sees touring guitarists/keyboardists Dave Depper and Zac Rae become official fulltime members (joining founding singer/guitarist Ben Gibbard, founding bassist Nick Harmer, and longtime drummer Jason McGerr). These transitions may give some fans the idea that their lovable indie rock group will be heading in a new direction. However, while Thank You for Today indeed shows progress and maturation, it never loses any of the signatures that make the songs uniquely Death Cab for Cutie, with moments in the record harkening back to Narrow Stairs , Plans , and The Photo Album .
The record opens with “I Dreamt We Spoke Again,” a song that delivers haunted piano chords with McGerr’s tight drumming and Gibbard’s narrator talking about an imagined reconnection with a former lover in which his “mind filled in the blanks.” This trancelike vibe of the record continues for the first few songs until the Yoko Ono-sampled opening of lead single, “Gold Rush.” Here, Gibbard takes the listener on a tour of his Seattle neighborhood, all the while wryly commenting on the tech giants who constantly “dig for gold” to pad their own bottom lines. Musically, Death Cab for Cutie do use a variety of keyboards and synths throughout the album, but there are plenty of electric guitar dirges (especially in songs such as “Your Hurricane”) to satisfy the palates of long-time fans.
Song titles like “Summer Years” and “Autumn Love” seem to build on a subtle theme about the passage of time and the changes that occur, whether you want them or not. Formed at Western Washington University in 1997, Death, signing to a major label and being the centerpiece of every mix CD you ever gave or received in the mid-to-late 2000s. The albums that followed led the group to experiment, albeit with some misses. may strike a chord with fans in particular, not only because of the fact that Death Cab for Cutie has incorporated some familiar musical elements, but also because of the fact the fans have grown up with the band in a way. Each of the band members have found love, lost love, and found it again. They’ve experienced the birth of children and the death of loved ones. And the humanity and gratitude of being alive is what shines through.
