Death Cab for Cutie
Something About Airplanes

THE REVIEW

I almost always end up judging, for better or worse, books by their covers, and obviously, I'm not (only) talking about books.

It goes without saying that the debut of Death Cab For Cutie (A.D. 1998), given what I've written above, could only be a pleasant listen.

Against a backdrop of unrealistically clear blue, a white oval contains a stylized rowboat. All letters intentionally lowercase, almost expressing a tendency towards introversion.

“Something About Airplanes” is pure nineties aesthetic, with a sound representative of their area of origin, that Pacific Northwest that provided many musical gems during those years.

Semi lo-fi production for an album also rich with incredibly pop hints (“President of What?”, which at times recalls the Eels). Like many debut albums, “SAA” is influenced by various styles: thus “Champagne From A Paper Cup”, with a smithian (Elliott, ed.) flavor, is followed by “Your Bruise”, starting with slowcore arpeggios (similar to those of the sixth track “Sleep Spent”) before evolving more dynamically.

There are also cleaner melodies, both born from a somewhat more traditional rock (see “Pictures In An Exhibition”), and closer to more dreamy sounds (“Amputations”, which in some ways recalls Mercury Rev). The cello interventions, which enrich “Bend To Squares” and “The Face That Launched 1000 Shits” with bittersweet tones, are also effective.

Ben Gibbard and Chris Walla (vocals, guitar, and main songwriter the first, guitarist, producer, and co-author the second) succeed in rendering delicate the distorted and reverberated textures of their electric guitars, in a manner very similar to their neighbors Built To Spill.

The splendid post-rock ballad “Line Of Best Fit”, with a delicate female voice and a quasi-psychedelic final tail, closes an album certainly minor compared to other contemporary masterpieces, yet unjustly underrated and highly recommended to genre enthusiasts.