For the better part of a decade, Death Cab have been coasting. Albums have never been outright terrible, however Codes and Keys, Kitsugi, and Thank You for Today feature some of Gibbard’s most disconnected songwriting. Over twenty years into their career, it seemed like the Seattle band’s emo-tinged rock music had lost its bite.
It is a relief that Asphalt Meadows, their tenth full-length album, released on September 16th, is the most consistently exciting Death Cab album since the late ‘aughts.
Preoccupied by the pandemic, the band searches for comfort and pleads for future certainty through the catharsis of rock music. It is unclear whether the universal traumas of the pandemic have rekindled Gibbard’s songwriting or have simply primed our ears to better see ourselves in him. Either way, Asphalt Meadows is a long overdue Death Cab album where the sonics meet the lyrics, each elevating the other.
This is apparent from the outset. “I Don’t Know How I Survive,” opens the album with the jangly guitars and lightly processed vocals expected from mid-career Death Cab—then the chorus hits, unleashing a sudden wall of electric fuzz that breaks the monotony, perfectly conveying the at-home, whiplash panic of the early pandemic. While the lyrics feel a bit slight, Gibbard still manages to pique interest when he sings, “Praying, even though you don’t believe/Just in case they are received/By anyone.” If the chorus resembles a blast of panic, the more reserved verses are the in-betweens where Gibbard scrambles to make sense of the attack, resorting to empty prayers when everything feels out of control.
This scramble is a through-line for the album, especially on “Here to Forever.” Despite its familiar radio-single sound, the track shows how close mid-career Death Cab have remained on the cusp of greatness. Underneath the pleasant, ordinary sound, the track invites deeper listening by way of Gibbard’s forthright writing about death’s inevitability and his unstable, uncertain future. As Gibbard ponders his lack of control, he relents and tries to shrug it off stating, “I wanna feel the pressure of God or whatever.” It is inelegant, a little puerile, as thoughts like these often are.
On other tracks, it is Asphalt Meadows’ renewed sound that holds its themes together. Lead single “Roman Candles” opens with a thumping, crunchy beat before abrasive, loud stabs of electric guitar jab themselves in. Per its title, the track explodes with energy. Death Cab have an almost juvenile playfulness here and throughout the record; they are willing to rock out and let loose. This playfulness extends to Gibbard’s lyrics. There’s something wryly funny about the indie icon being “devoured” by his latte.
The title track, meanwhile, could pass at glance as a more compelling cut from Thank You For Today, but is separated by its propulsive chorus. Fuzzy guitar lines and pulsing drums make it feel physical, like we are moving with Gibbard through his memory.
There is variety, too. The nostalgic “Randy McNally” achieves temporary solace with its twinkling description of the enticing freedom of the open road. It would read as wholly escapist if the sentiment was not interrogated later on the rustic gem “Wheat Like Waves.” A candid beat and warm synthesizers contrast Gibbard’s longing for an admittedly delusional homesteader’s life in the Canadian cold. But the highway north proves delusional: “Speeding like we thought we were escaping/From everything we feared that we were breaking/By trying to hold them in our hands.”
The closest the band ever gets to quelling their existential dread is on “Foxglove Through the Clearcut,” the clear centerpiece of Asphalt Meadows and, perhaps, one of the most beautiful songs in Death Cab for Cutie’s sprawling catalog.
Within this piece, the band achieves a true, nuanced sense of hope as Gibbard speaks (speaks!) plainly about our occupation of American soil before describing the symbolic image of wildlife reclaiming the space taken from it. As the narrative comes to its end, Death Cab soar into a post-rock climax in what could build into a sprawling, anthemic instrumental. Instead, it lasts just shy of a minute. The band reserves itself, refusing to reach total catharsis. This hope for the future is tempered; it is not so easy.
It is this emotional clarity, then, that makes a song like closer “I’ll Never Give Up on You” so bizarre to hear. The song hangs on, and mostly consists of its title refrain, which reads as superficial in the face of the nuance that marks much of the rest of Asphalt Meadows. Still, at least the song sounds like the band is having fun. Vocoded chants—“Never give up! Never give up!”—increase the cheese factor while synths surge and piano chords land with dramatic thud. It’s Death Cab gone synth-pop! If that’s your thing.
Gibbard’s writing, too, can still lean too general—“Pepper,” “I Don’t Know How I Survive”—but at least those points are temporary lows on an otherwise consistently enjoyable record. There may not be any turns of phrase as resonant as any given line in the bridge of “New Year,” nor any song as transcendent as “Transatlanticism,” but Asphalt Meadows delivers a relatability and bluntness from Death Cab that feels reinvigorating.
But Asphalt Meadows is not a revelation. It succeeds with small adjustments: Gibbard’s writing is mostly repaired and the band is finally willing to meet his angst with an intense abrasion unheard on any prior Death Cab for Cutie album. More than anything, it is nice to hear the band back in compelling form.
Finnegan Bly is an Arts and Culture Writer for The Triton