death cab for cutie by erica

A Week With Death Cab For Cutie's "Narrow Stairs: Day 4

20 August 2008
tell your friends... tell your friends...

Words by Tony Conte // Illustration by Erica Parrot

Narrow Stairs richly rewards with repeated listens. Gossamer vocals float toward the surface, briefly slip with the waves, then sink back below. Certain phrasings or riffs poke their heads from the milieu briefly to never be heard from again.

Death Cab For Cutie has, with its 8th album, culled the most successful and deft maneuvers from its expansive catalogue while training its focus on inventive recording measures to force the band from its comfort zone (for killer interviews with the band, check out Daytrotter For The Eyes). The amalgamation of those lessons learned with the fresh, if forced, perspective on recording successfully elevates Narrow Stairs to one of the most accomplished albums in the band’s catalogue.

“Talking Bird” is a study in restraint. Everpresent electric guitars slowly tangle themselves around an insistent bassline. The drum treats its job as drudgery, limping along behind the bass with one sad tambourine by its side. Musically, a gentle crescendo grows almost unnoticeably and never reaches even an approximation of catharsis. It’s all so fitting for a song entirely about a caged bird’s learned helplessness.

“Oh, my talking bird though you know so few words, they’re on infinite repeat, like your brain can’t keep up with your beak, and you’re kept in an open cage and you’re free to leave or stay.”

Gibbard tames his airy vocals and follows the arc of the song with incredible self-control. The simplicity of the song’s individual components, and the fragility of Gibbard’s reflection on learned helplessness practically beg to be cluttered with more of just about any instrument available. But Gibbard isn’t about to have a Mariah Carey moment and springboard off into the atmosphere with some vocal gymnastics. Like songs so perfectly executed in the past (“I Will Follow You Into The Dark”), “Talking Bird” relies on whispers rather than shouts…and the lamentations remain the same.

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