|
|
|
By Paul LaRocco The Upward Spiral For those who can’t recall past the hysteria of a Pixies reunion and a hypnotic Radiohead, 2004’s sweltering, sold-out first day of the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival was — in the words of Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard — “miserable.” Gibbard, of course, doesn’t mean this from an experience standpoint. His band, Death Cab For Cutie, was cresting on a critically extolled indie record (Transatlanticism() and newfound commercial exposure from a popular television series (The O.C. ). They took the desert stage that day as breakout artists wooed by a major label. Just not ones afforded a time slot after the sun went down. “The whole day I’ve been drinking Gatorade and staying in an air-conditioned bus and I think I’ve got it all figured out,” Gibbard says, reliving a mid-afternoon set in 105-degree heat. “After 35 minutes of music I felt like I was going to f*cking pass out. Both of my amps overheated and I was literally playing the last song thinking [that] if I have to play one more song I would throw up. It was just so miserable.” Fortunately for Death Cab For Cutie, subsequent sold-out tours and a Grammy-nominated, platinum-certified debut album for Atlantic Records (Plans) allowed for a triumphant return to Coachella this month. It adds up to a headlining set under the stars, keeping company with stalwart electronica acts Portishead and Kraftwerk. “I’m hoping the weather is a little more mild,” Gibbard deadpans. “A soft left” But even if there’s an unexpected April freeze over the desert, Death Cab For Cutie will come in hot. When the band arrives in Indio, it will be within weeks of its long-awaited second release for Atlantic, Narrow Stairs. The album, out May 13, was recorded over three months in three studios and promises a jolt to the expectations of many fans. Its lead single, “I Will Possess Your Heart,” will be edited for radio play, but on the album is an eight-and-a-half-minute slow burn that deliberately builds guitar upon piano upon drums upon bass. Gibbard and producer/multi-instrumentalist Chris Walla pour a wordless melody between Nick Harmer’s fluid bass lines and Jason McGerr’s deliberate drumming. Gibbard’s distinct crystalline vocals don’t even appear until four minutes have ticked away. While Death Cab has created prolonged soundscapes before — most notably the title track to 2003’s Transatlanticism — nothing has ever been this overtly bold. But before anyone braces themselves for a self-indulgent cluster of jams… “We didn’t go from being a guitar- and song-based rock band to becoming a Gregorian chant, Middle Eastern Krautrock band,” Gibbard says. “There are elements that could be challenging for some people, but I think we took a soft left and not necessarily a violent left turn.” From indie to major Leading up to 2005’s Plans, Death Cab toured tirelessly (including the stop at Coachella the prior year) as they grew their fan base. The quartet, originally from Bellingham, Wash., had already matured from a low-fi outlet for Gibbard’s character studies to a full-fledged band capable of both muscular rock songs and haunting ballads. With the promotional efforts for Plans, Gibbard said he and his band mates didn’t have much of a chance to come up for air. Songs like the rhythmic “Soul Meets Body” and the heartfelt “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” received heavy radio airplay, begetting appearances on numerous late night talk shows and Saturday Night Live. Plans was released in Sept. 2005. The dust finally settled in Dec. 2006, when Gibbard, Walla, Harmer and McGerr went their own ways for eight months. Gibbard went on a small solo tour and scored an independent film. The ever-occupied Walla produced an album for Tegan & Sara and recorded his own solo release. McGerr built a recording studio. When the men reconvened at the close of last summer for the Narrow Stairs sessions they found themselves in a different place. The “surgical” approach they took to ensure Atlantic was satisfied with Plans would not be repeated. “It felt like we had a lot of room to breathe and really think about what we had accomplished, and what we wanted to accomplish in the future,” Gibbard says. “I think for all of us there was less of [an] intent to build on any commercial success that we had with Plans. We just believe that the people who came to the band over the last couple of records will be able to go wherever we take them.” The basis for Narrow Stairs’ 11 songs is mainly “the four of us in a room, playing together,” Gibbard notes, and bits that didn’t sound perfect weren’t deemed mistakes. But the craftsmanship of prior records is still clear. Walla’s production closely matches the sound of the closing number “The Ice is Getting Thinner” with the foreboding lyric (“Nowhere to go…nothing underneath…It saddens me to say the ice was getting thinner under me and you.”) The album’s opener, “Bixby Canyon Bridge,” ends with a buzz saw of a guitar giving way to feedback and an eerie vocal by Gibbard. It is more of a jam, at points, than anything Death Cab has ever recorded. Older and wiser Lyrically, Gibbard finds some dark places to explore, including on “Cath,” where a woman caught between young adulthood and expectations for responsibility into middle age finds herself strangely uneasy about her life: “She holds like a smile like some would hold a crying child.” The song was written after the 31-year-old Gibbard said he began to see more of his friends quit bands, get married and take up a more traditional adult life as they hit their 30s. “It plays into having that decision made for oneself and the expectations put on you by your friends and family: what you’ve been taught the trajectory of your life should be,” he says. “The central character in that song, there’s a massive, huge amount of trepidation which I feel I’ve caught glimpses of in many weddings I’ve been to at this point in my life.” But with maturity — at least in Death Cab’s case — comes success. As their albums have become increasingly complex, their profile has risen. This brought the conversation back to Coachella, and how some close friends on the bill, L.A. pop band Rilo Kiley, would also be playing in a more desired time slot than their last appearance at the festival in 2005. With a similar career trajectory, Rilo Kiley’s 2007 major label release, Under the Blacklight, has the band filling large theaters instead of cramped indie rock clubs. On Coachella’s website, they are listed sixth out of the 24 bands scheduled to play Saturday. Gibbard anticipated that following Rilo Kiley as one of the last acts of Saturday night would be one of the festival’s bigger personal highlights. With a near-capacity crowd of more than 50,000 people expected, the people who migrate toward the main stage for Death Cab’s set may create even more of a dramatic snapshot than he recalled from 2004. “I remember seeing some photos our friend took from the stage,” Gibbard said. “It looked like some kind of Roman battle with people as far as the eye can see over the hill.” On the web: deathcabforcutie.com |
|||||||||||||||||
|
Copyright © 2002 Mean Street Magazine, LLC |
||||||||||||||||||
