Kintsugi. One word, but a whole world of ammunition for music writers the world over. Referring as it does to the Japanese art of ‘golden joinery’ – repairing broken pottery using precious metals – we can’t help but see the title of Death Cab for Cutie’s eighth studio album as a dare. ‘Go on’, Ben Gibbard, Nick Harmer and Jason McGerr seem to be saying as they politely square up to us, ‘frame your entire review as an obvious analogy, you lazy bastards.’ Just call us Dread Pirate Roberts, Ben. As you wish.
It’s been four years since the release of the excellent but divisive ‘Codes and Keys’, with its forays into electronics and shift away from a guitar-centric sound. Four years in which things happened to members of the band, as things are wont to do. If you want to retread that ground, visit Google; we’re a music site, not TMZ. What is impossible to escape, though, is the departure of Chris Walla.
As guitarist and producer or co-producer on everything they’ve released since 1998’s ‘Something About Airplanes’, Death Cab for Cutie’s output sits almost entirely in Walla’s sonic shadow. While much has been made of frontman Gibbard’s past electronic dalliances as part of The Postal Service, an act whose name is evoked seemingly any time DCFC venture near any instrument without sticks or strings, the band’s musical evolution is inseparable from Walla’s. The beeping, squelching and minimalist drum machines of The Postal Service’s incredible ‘Give Up’ album was mainly the work of Dntel’s Jimmy Tamborello but when Death Cab crack out the sequencers, it’s Chris Walla tweaking the knobs.
While Walla’s considered, atmospheric guitar work still features on ‘Kintsugi’, production duties are handled by Rich Costey who, if we’re going to embrace the lazy metaphors Gibbard and co are inviting us to (and we are), acts as the golden lacquer to Death Cab’s fractured teapot. In Costey’s hands, though, Death Cab somehow manage to recapture the intimate mood missing from their last two albums without ever sounding like they’re stepping back.
While the pop-rock anthems of yore are eschewed in favour of a muted soundscape that at times evokes synth-pop, when Death Cab do let go the results are some of the best songs they’ve ever written, albeit across a broad sonic spectrum. ‘Good Help (Is So Hard To Find)’ manages the odd trick of being simultaneously the album’s highlight while sounding nothing like a Death Cab song while ‘You’ve Haunted Me All My Life’ recalls the brooding beauty of Translanticism’s title track.
Ah, the ‘T’ word. It was only a matter of time, but this evocation of their 2003 breakthrough – and to many, best – album is a bold move on a record which so deliberately distances itself from that era. It’s a reassuring one too though, as it shows a band comfortable with both who they are and who they were and that’s important for an act’s survival, particularly following such a tumultuous period.
As others have observed, ‘Kintsugi’ is undeniably front-loaded with its premium material, but that speaks less to the quality of the band’s least impressive songs than it does to the quality of their best. If ‘Codes & Keys’ was a step too far for you then this is unlikely to win you back, but Death Cab for Cutie are just fine with that. They’re golden.
ROB BARBOUR