Death Cab for Cutie – Narrow Stairs Album Review

Death Cab for Cutie’s latest release, Narrow Stairs, encapsulates a few of the aspects of Death Cab that I love (anecdotal lyrics and vocal arrangements, progressive drums and timing), but ultimately comes up short in comparison to their previous records.

Narrow Stairs triumphs with the songs Bixby Canyon Bridge, Grapevine Fires, and Your New Twin Sized Bed. And when I say triumph, I mean that they trump all of the rest of the songs by a vast margin. These songs triumph (and what I’m about to say is an over-arching contributor to DCFC’s success) because the band is able to intertwine vocalist Ben Gibbard’s story-telling style with their indie music roots. They don’t try to do anything too sexy or over the top. They stick to what they are good at…and they are great at it.

Other songs on the album, such as Talking Bird, Pity and Fear, and I Will Possess Your Heart, lack direction and end up not really going anywhere. I found myself wanting more to come from the rest of the album, waiting for the songs to come to fruition like older songs Tiny Vessels, Transatlanticism and The New Year do.

But hey, seriously, 3 awesome songs out of 12 isn’t bad. Most bands don’t write 3 awesome songs their entire career.

I suggest you check out this album if only out of respect for what Death Cab has done in the past.

The three songs I mentioned, Bixby Canyon Bridge, Grapevine Fires, and Your New Twin Sized Bed, are available in the player on the left side of the page.

JMMP.

Album Review: The Republic Tigers - Keep Color

Artist: The Republic Tigers

Album: Keep Color

Release Date: May 6, 2008

Label: Chop Shop Records

I stumbled upon The Republic Tigers while trying to find some good bands to see in the DC area.  In fact, I probably would have skipped over them had it not been for their name.  For some reason, I really like it and I can't tell you why.  I'm not trying to be cryptic.  I just like it.

Anyways, after liking their name, I checked out their music and was hooked.  They have an interesting fusion of spacey vocal melodies, acoustic pop and electronica...in fact, I've been trying to relate them to another band, but I'm having trouble; maybe The Shins mixed with a musically upbeat Death Cab for Cutie.

The album, Keep Color, itself is compromised of 12 songs of about the same tempo.  I feel like when an album has little variance in the type of songs musically, their success hinges on vocal divergence across the songs.  With tracks like Weatherbeaten, Give Arm to Its Socket and Stranger to the Eyes of a Child-Man, TRT accomplish that; however, the album falls short when it comes to accomplishing that comprehensively across the album.  It is important to say that the songs that do do that, are well worth a listen, so I recommend checking out this album.

Another supporting quality is The Republic Tigers put on a great show, so if you have the chance, check them out.  They are playing Letterman 5/22 so that'll give you an idea.

The songs on their myspace page aren't their best/ones I was talking about earlier, so I'm going to work on uploading the new album to my blog.  I hope to have them up tomorrow.

Time to zzzzzzzz.

JMMP.