Death Cab for Cutie Continue Their Climb to the Top

The title of Death Cab for Cutie’s second release for Narrow Stairs, is actually quite deceptive for anyone postulating the musical direction this Washington state indie-pop quartet has pursued on their sixth album. Though it would seem to imply a tightness and confined, perhaps, claustrophobic feel to the music, Narrow Stairs is, in fact, a spacious, loose album that reflects a different approach to writing and recording it from its two predecessors. Though Transatlanticism and Plans launched the band’s national success, they also saw Death Cab for Cutie—guitarist/vocalist Ben Gibbard, guitarist Chris Walla, bassist Nick Harmer and drummer Jason McGerr—somewhat inadvertently veer from their original trajectory.

Narrow Stairs became the foursome’s opportunity to reconnect as musicians and bandmates, with one of the biggest changes being simply the way that they recorded it—basically live in the studio, with minimal overdubs. “The core of the album is still very much Death Cab for Cutie,” assures Harmer, “but I think that this record has a more immediate quality and a different kind of energy captured in these performances than the previous two albums.”

Instead of laying down their parts individually, DCFC were actually standing in the same room together; and rather than stacking on the practically endless number of tracks that recording digitally allows, they used an old-school 24-track analog tape machine. “It was nice to record in the analog world and be limited in our options,” says Harmer. “I think that captured a real sense of honesty for us and a strong sense of who we are as players and where we’re at as a band.”

Another change came simply in the way Gibbard approached songwriting for the album, eschewing the keyboard-heavy aesthetic of Plans for something a little rawer. “When Ben started demoing for this album he really sort of fell back in love with his guitar again,” says Harmer. “The nature of these guitar songs in general made it easier for the four of us just to strap on [our instruments] and start playing together.”

Ultimately the different approach didn’t radically alter the band’s sound—Narrow Stairs is not so far afield to alienate fans—but it did provide a spark of inspiration and even a little apprehension. “I do think you can hear us stretching,” says Harmer. “It would have been really easy for us just to remake Plans and not rock the boat so much, but that doesn’t interest us creatively. So the fact that we’re not repeating ourselves and are moving into territory that’s a little unknown, does cause us moments of pause every once in awhile. But I think the fact that we have that moment of pause and apprehension means that [we’re] in exactly the right spot creatively.”

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This entry was posted by RNYK on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 2:28 am