As everyone with a shaggy haircut, pair of Converse high tops, and bleeding heart is sure to already know, indie rock stalwarts Death Cab For Cutie are releasing their seventh studio album Codes And Keys on Tuesday, May 31st. (That’s one week after Lady Gaga’s Born This Way, so you’ve got time to save some more money.) From their early days on Barsuk Records to their major label hop to Atlantic, the band—guitarist/vocalist Ben Gibbard, guitarist Chris Walla, bassist Nick Harmer, and drummer Jason McGerrr—have encapsulated just about every wistful, nostalgic, heavy sigh-inducing life experience you’re liable to have before the age of thirty…something…
In honor of their impressive back catalogue, we honed down and painfully picked ten Death Cab tracks that we can definitely call our favorites. Maybe not always the most obvious or popular, these are the ones that stuck with us, the ones that can still manage to incite a tear or two when Terron and JT aren’t looking.
For your judgmental pleasure, we humbly present our definitive Death Cab Top Ten. Hit up our comments section below with all of your favorites that we overlooked.
#10 “Little Fury Bugs” (We Have The Facts And We’re Voting Yes)
A somber, evocative guitar/vocal number about a social outcast with a quietly soaring chorus that still gives us the shivers.
#9 “Different Names For The Same Thing” (Plans)
Starts with that gorgeous, broken down upright piano and builds into a soaring symphony of vocal harmonies, xylophones, drum fills, and everything else lush and wonderful you can possibly throw into a song.
#8 “405” (We Have The Facts And We’re Voting Yes)
One of the band’s most bittersweet guitar riffs opens a painfully short and sweet tale of confused young love. Extra points for Ben’s identifiably terrible driving skills.
#7 “Styrofoam Plates” (The Photo Album)
A devastating portrait of the funeral for a man whose family grew up hating him but put on a good face in the end. Possibly the best example of Gibbard’s storytelling prowess… anyone who’s been in that situation knows exactly what he’s singing about.
#6 “Champagne From A Paper Cup” (Something About Airplanes)
One of the band’s earliest songs, this tense, insular “ballad” offers chilling lines like “I think I’m drunk enough to drive you home now” and a pervading sense of late night paranoia that rings especially true with that brittle guitar tone.
#5 “I Will Possess Your Heart” (Narrow Stairs)
From it’s sprawling, Krautrock inspired opening jam to those fantastically creepy lyrics, this was one of the band’s most exciting singles in ages when it first dropped a handful of summers ago. Best listened to outside of your crush’s bedroom window, of course.
#4 “Transatlanticism” (Transatlanticism)
Always a tear-jerker, this soaring epic—centerpiece of the band’s breakout album—builds upon the painful premise of long distance love and rises into a rousing anthem of electric guitar/piano bombast and choir-like, densely layered vocals. I’m getting a little sniffly just thinking about it…
#3 “We Laugh Indoors” (The Photo Album)
A rousing, upbeat, jangly rocker that explodes into a cacophony of electric guitar mayhem following its “I loved you, Guinevere” refrain. Always loved the elusive lyrics and shifting sonic dynamics… one of their best arrangements to date!
#2 “I Will Follow You Into The Dark” (Plans)
Scoff if you will, but the inner sixteen-year-old girl in all of us will always have a special place for this lighters in the air acoustic classic. Both painfully romantic and startlingly morbid, this is surely the song that will haunt them to their own graves.
#1 “We Looked Like Giants” (Transatlanticism)
Always a live favorite, this immensely popular album track opens with a fleeting tale of young, desperate love and spews out into a sprawling, lengthy fade out section which, in concert, usually consists of the band members swapping instruments. A stirring, powerful summation of all the band’s strengths, lyrically and musically.
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