Death Cab for Cutie - The Photo Album
(Barsuk)
Death Cab for Cutie's last album, We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes, was an emotionally charged album centering on a forbidden love with a woman about to be married. As such, the music on that album was as forlorn and despondent as Ben Gibbard's lyrics, using studio tricks to make the sound dark, muffled, and murky. It follows that the album's followup would have to be a bit brighter.
The Photo Album is a lot brighter. The production tricks of the last album that made the songs sound--to great effect--like they were recorded inside a cardboard box are not used here, letting the vocals sound sweeter and letting the rock guitars ring out. Humor is even brought in, like in "Why You'd Want to Live Here," the band's answer to Randy Newman's "I Love L.A." (We Hate It!). Running down a laundry list of everything that's wrong with Southern California, from the smog to the egos, the group uses both a "snotty guitar" part, showing Gibbard's true distaste, and a "polite guitar" part, to highlight the humor of his gibes. Gibbard quips "You can't swim in a town this shallow."
However, this song is directed at someone: "I can't see why you'd want to live here." Gibbard has found a new love to lose and then act all depressed about, however unlike the last album where losing that love was earth-shattering, this love seems to be more of the summer love variety. The relationship's time has come and gone, and it's too much trouble to keep it all together. On "Information Travels Faster," Gibbard talks about wanting to lose touch with that lost love, claiming he intentionally made his letters an "illegible mess," hoping she would get the picture. The song is wonderful because the mood of the music so perfectly matches the tone of the words, something Death Cab for Cutie has become experts at doing; this is what it would sound like if that lost love were to call Gibbard and confront him with what her friends have told her (the "information" that "travels faster") and his general unresponsiveness.
This key link between Gibbard's words and the band's music is important to remember when the end of this relationship is sung about on "I Was a Kaleidoscope," as it is an upbeat, joyful rock song. Gibbard sings about walking through the cold streets of his snowy hometown, en route to his girlfriend's apartment. The guitars chug and bounce as the girlfriend's look lets him know that the relationship is over, and he find himself left out in the cold with all the over-bundled children playing in the snow. But the music lets you know this breakup ain't so tragic.
Not all songs are about love and loss, though. "Styrofoam Plates" is an angry rock song directed at his recently deceased father. Gibbard finds himself at his father's funeral with everyone celebrating his life, somehow being able to ignore that he abandoned his family and left them poor. The biting bitterness of the song along with the sweeping melodicism of the bridge keep the song poignant despite being a little too close to that Everclear song thematically. On the other end of the emotional spectrum is 'Coney Island," which is simply a bright but mellow burst of sunshine, singing about riding a roller coaster at Coney Island.
What's great about The Photo Album is that it shows Death Cab for Cutie can still make an excellent pop record even though they don't have the deep emotional content to ground it as they did with We Have the Facts... Death Cab for Cutie has become one of the only indie pop bands that matter.
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