Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Death Cab for CutieEdition: Music CD
Audio: French (Unknown)
Published: 2008
CD Release Date: 2008-05-13
Music Label: Atlantic
Soundtracks:
- Bixby Canyon Bridge
- I Will Possess Your Heart
- No Sunlight
- Cath???
- Talking Bird
- You Can Do Better Than Me
- Grapevine Fires
- Your New Twin Sized Bed
- Long Division
- Pity And Fear
- The Ice Is Getting Thinner
Free Music Notes for Narrow Stairs
Free Music Review: Stairway To Heaven
Hit: 4 Stars
For all their reputation as sensitive emo-types mooning over teen-angst TV shows, the 2008 release from Death Cab For Cutie is almost anything but that stereotype. While the songs here follow Cab Leader Ben Gibbard through his lyrical trials of broken relationships ("Your New Twin Sized Bed") and the girl that got away ("Cath"), the trickier parts of "Narrow Stairs" have so many other things going for it. This is a climb into a dark room, and a very effective one.
The most affected sign of this is the long, obtuse "I Will Possess Your Heart." A near paranoid rant about getting you whether you like it or not (also see "Every Breath You Take") builds to the first verse after more than four minutes of tense instrumental buildup. I'm not claiming DCfC are the new Yes, but this is bordering on prog-rock territory.
I'm also more than inclined to like "Grapevine Fires," a folkish tale of watching the western forest fires in both fear and awe, marveling at nature's force and the nature of love.
"We bought some wine and some paper cups
Near your daughters school when we picked her up
And drove to a cemetery on a hill, On a hill
And we watched the plumes paint the sky gray
But she laughed and danced through the field of graves
And there I knew it would be alright."
Gibbard is stretching himself lyrically through "Narrow Stairs," and unlike Plans, he's shooting for something other than frothy angst flavored milkshakes. It makes this CD their best yet.
Narrow Stairs Poster
After relentless touring, performances on Saturday Night Live, and appearing on the cover of Spin and Paste Magazines, Death Cab for Cutie brings us Narrow Stairs. Following up their DVD collection, Directions, which sold over 30,000 copies and their platinum selling album, Plans, was no easy task but Narrow Stairs has already been praised by MTV.com as the band's most daring and adventurous effort to date.Narrow Stairs might be the first album recorded by Death Cab for Cutie since Ben Gibbard's former solo project went unexpectedly stratospheric, but Gibbard hasn't let it go to his head. Oh, OK, maybe a little: lead-off single "I Will Possess Your Heart" is an eight minute jam that speeds off on one long, luminous curve before Gibbard's distinctive vocals swing in, sweet and plaintive as ever. Even when indulging their grander visions, though, Death Cab for Cutie are still familiar as the same band that wrote those fragile, winsome songs back before teen drama The OC came knocking. Never knowingly overstated, built from driving rhythms, flourishes of piano and intricate melodies, Narrow Stairs builds grand, emotionally loaded narratives from small, subtle parts. "Your New Twin Sized Bed" hides a deftly articulated tale of heartbreak and loneliness amidst soothing tangles of guitar, while "You Can Do Better than Me" is a sweet miniature that's part Pet Sounds orchestration, part wistful Dear John. This isn't, as Gibbard would previously hint, a dissonant or especially adventurous album. It proves, however, that Death Cab can extend their scope without diluting the pathos or energy of their music, and it not only sounds great, but bodes well for the future. --Louis Pattison
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