Album Review: Death Cab for Cutie goes exploring on “Thank You For Today”
“Thank You For Today,” Death Cab for Cutie’s first album without founding guitarist Chris Walla, is not the departure that some fans might have feared. In many ways, it’s actually a return to form.
The opening track on “Thank You For Today,” “I Dreamt We Spoke Again,” is supremely chill, channeling a low-key, shoegaze-like vibe that lands somewhere between Beach House and Death Cab’s own pre-“Transatlanticism” early work. Like pretty much everything that frontman and primary songwriter Ben Gibbard does, it manages to be catchy, but in a subdued way.
This pervasive atmosphere carries through much of the album, creating a road trip-ready soundtrack, especially on songs like “When We Drive” (“You and I were born in motion / Never in one place for too long a time”). There’s even something of an exploratory theme to the record, transitioning from land-based travel in “When We Drive” to seafaring on “Autumn Love” (“Just leave me floating on the open ocean”).
Yet the thematic material goes beyond the physical movement, also contemplating the emotions behind the physical distance between people on the bittersweet “You Moved Away” (“When you moved away / They all felt irrationally betrayed”) and examining the metaphorical distance created by emotional detachment on “Near/Far” (“As I am standing by your side / Trying to breach this dark and deep divide”).
Replacing Walla on “Thank You For Today” are two multi-instrumentalists, Dave Depper and Zac Rae, who primarily play a variety of guitars and keyboard instruments, respectively.
It wouldn’t be a Death Cab for Cutie album without a moment of poignancy. Few bands do that particular emotion as well as Gibbard and Co.
But for those worried that Death Cab might lose some of its distinctive sound without Walla, the band presents “Summer Years” as evidence to the contrary. A Walla-like ringing guitar riff anchors the track in classic Death Cab fashion. It’s actually Gibbard’s vocals that veer somewhat from the band’s characteristic sound as he channels Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys, singing “And I wonder where you are tonight / And if the one you’re with was a compromise.”
While the album has something of a ubiquitous feel, one song disrupts that groove. “Gold Rush” would be a strong track if it wasn’t for the chant-like repetition of its title over and over in the background. Even a nifty rhythm track sampled from Yoko Ono’s “Mind Train” can’t save it from this repetitive annoyance.
And although Gibbard is on top of his word game for much of the album, “Your Hurricane” wreaks a little lyrical destruction as the songwriter lamentably rhymes “delicate kid” with “sea full of squid.” Ouch.
Thankfully, these missteps are cancelled out by a couple of the band’s best songs since “Plans,” its 2005 major-label breakthrough. At the forefront is the dynamic “Northern Lights,” where a new wave guitar riff paves the way for a buoyant piano melody, leading into some of Gibbard’s most poetic lyrics (“From silvery sheens and celestial spheres to parapets and clove cigarettes”) and the album’s best chorus hook. Adding an extra shimmer is Lauren Mayberry of Chvrches on harmony vocals.
Plus, it wouldn’t be a Death Cab for Cutie album without a moment of poignancy. Few bands do that particular emotion as well as Gibbard and Co. (“I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” “Grapevine Fires”). Here it arrives in the form of “60 & Punk,” a plaintive tribute to an older musician from a younger devotee (“When I met you I was 22 / Trying so hard to play it cool”) that builds to a heartbreaking chorus: “The curtain falls to applause and the band plays you off / He’s a superhero growing bored with no one to save anymore.”
At 42, Gibbard is still mercifully far from 60. And with longtime bassist Nick Harmer and drummer Jason McGerr still with him at the core of the band, Death Cab is taking Walla’s departure in stride.
Yes, there are flaws on “Thank You For Today,” but it’s also the band’s most fully realized album in more than a decade.
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