Death Cab for Cutie
Asphalt Meadows

The Death Cab for Cutie have embodied the essence of musical independence for several years.

The band from Bellingham, born as the solo project of guitarist Ben Gibbard, remained for years tied to the small Barsuk Records, under which they released their first four albums (the demo "You Can Play These Songs with Chords" from 1997 was released by Atlantic).
In the early phase of their career, each release represented the next stage of a constant and never predictable maturation. In "Something About Airplanes" (1998), artisanal recording techniques marry a declared slow-core inspiration, while "We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes" (2000) is more airy in terms of production and shows a remarkable maturation in Gibbard's storytelling.
"The Photo Album" (2001), as the title suggests, makes the images in its lyrics even more vivid and especially considerably elevates the stylistic variety of the compositions: the more elementary and understated tracks, like the opening "Steadier Footing" and "Coney Island", are juxtaposed with some of the most intense and self-aware moments in the entire catalog: "Styrofoam Plates" is a scathing epitaph aimed at a friend's father, which has all the characteristics of an invective ("You were not quite a father but a donor of seeds to a poor single mother that would raise us alone"), whereas "We Laugh Indoors" confines aggression to the purely instrumental plane, with a possessed Gibbard in the bridge and a standout rhythm section, thanks to Michael Schorr's lively percussion. Equally important are the dissonances achieved in the formally imperfect yet extremely touching melody of "Debate Exposes Doubt", the album's peak.
Death Cab stand as a flag of indie rock with the next album, their undisputed masterpiece: "Transatlanticism" (2003) is a work of remarkable emotional impact, in which each song is in the right place and shines with its own light. An album that truly consecrates the band, allowing them to make a definitive transition to Atlantic.

The contract with the major marks a point of no return for the group. "Plans" (2005) lives in the shadow of its predecessor, unable to replicate its success in qualitative terms. The grandiose element, which was skillfully dosed in "Transatlanticism," emerges too often here and is sometimes expressed in bland pop arrangements and clouds of synthesizers. It is no coincidence that things go decidedly better with "I Will Follow You into the Dark" and "Brothers on a Hotel Bed", sparse and heartfelt ballads.
"Narrow Stairs" (2008) raises the quality bar and recovers a certain taste for obliquity and abrasiveness, prominently featuring Chris Walla's guitars. The subsequent "Codes and Keys" (2011) is lighter and carefree, an anomaly for an author immersed in melancholy like Gibbard. "Kintsugi" (2015) sees mannerism prevailing over inspiration.

The separation from Walla drags the group into a moment of crisis, the result of which is "Thank You for Today" (2018), a rather faded album that lazily incorporates elements of electronics coupled with unusually anonymous songwriting. Gibbard's voice appears tired, and tracks like "Your Hurricane" and "When We Drive" proceed on autopilot and do little to avoid boring or achieving something special. The flattening of Death Cab for Cutie's sonic palette, once able to move with just a few arpeggios and now seemingly unable to recover from the departure of a member, seemed an unequivocal sign of the exhaustion of their creative verve.
Well, the new "Asphalt Meadows" is an unexpected change of course, which abruptly interrupts the band's downward trajectory and qualifies as their best album since "Narrow Stairs," as well as one of the most adventurous in their entire discography.

It is an album of contrasts, where intimacy is not sacrificed at all – it particularly emerges in the desolate retrospection of "Fragments from the Decade" ("Your mother was a drunkard, your father was not a saint, your sister lacked restraint. And in photos you were always staring through the lens to some distant place you would rather have been") – but is accompanied by an innovative attraction to noise. The opening double header raises saturation levels to the max: in "I Don't Know How I Survive" the description of a nocturnal panic attack is accompanied by violent bursts of fuzz during the chorus, while the percussion in "Roman Candles" flirts with industrial.

The following tracks settle at a good quality level, while returning to sound coordinates more suitable to the "second phase" Death Cab for Cutie.
One can easily recognize the tracks descending from "Thank You for Today," unsurprisingly the least successful of the bunch: the barren "Pepper" and the concluding "I'll Never Give Up on You", a sister to "Gold Rush", which relies on an unconvincing melody (fitting the quintet like a suit from someone else's wardrobe) and boasts an excessively pompous string arrangement. The remaining tracks, however, are undoubtedly positive.

Among the surprises, there is "I Miss Strangers", a beast with two faces that recovers the punk-esque assaults of tracks like "No Sunlight" and "Long Division" (from "Narrow Stairs") beating the Silversun Pickups at their own game only to implode after two minutes into a long dreamy and extended Floydian interlude.

However, the most substantial dish of the platter is "Foxglove Through the Clearcut", a gem of introspection reflecting on the meaning of the territory for natives and the damages of industrialization ("And while the frontiers are ever-expanding / Our living rooms fall into disarray / And no one seems interested in fixing what they've broken / They just sweep the pieces into the bushes and slip away"). Here Gibbard dares a spoken-word and the rest of the band builds a textbook climax, closely resembling Explosions in the Sky.
Such a post-rock digression, with such excellent results, is the clearest signal that, 25 years from their formation, Death Cab for Cutie not only still have something to say but manage to find new ways to express an extremely personal poetic.