Album review: Death Cab for Cutie, 'Codes and Keys'
3 stars (out of 4)
Death Cab for Cutie’s seventh studio album, “Codes and Keys” (Atlantic), pulses with the sound of tires on pavement, life blurring past a bus window on the road. Tucked inside its shifting scenery is a yearning that nags like a toothache, the desire for some semblance of permanence in an impermanent environment.
The word “home” comes up a lot in Ben Gibbard’s lyrics. A touring musician, he recently found himself married (to actress Zooey Deschanel), and this album tells the tale of how he got there. Along the way, anxiety and disconnection (“And if you a feel just like a tourist in the city where you were born") are transformed into resolve.
In contrast to the live-in-the-studio immediacy of Death Cab’s previous album, “Narrow Stairs,” the new album is about turning the studio into an instrument – a hive of sound that suggests background noise from a distant freeway or a disturbance just over the horizon. Producer-guitarist Chris Walla is the primary architect, and he showcases the versatility of the band’s rhythm section. They evoke wheels clicking down the freeway on “Doors Unlocked and Open,” which borrows its groove from the German art-rock band Neu. Nick Harmer’s bass bobs to the surface of “Underneath the Sycamore” like a life preserver, and underlines the voice of reassurance in “You are a Tourist.” The album’s narrator may have settled down in the closing pop celebration, “Stay Young, Go Dancing,” but his band sure hasn’t – and that’s a good thing.
greg@gregkot.com