Death Cab takes the high road on new CD

"Plans"
Death Cab for Cutie, Atlantic

Death Cab for Cutie is like the smart, polite, scrawny, dreamy kid down the block who goes off to college ... or to New York to be an actor ... or overseas to fight a war.

A few years later, he returns home, filled out, maybe with more than a touch of cynicism about the world's ways, tougher, probably; looking at the world with the same eyes, but a different focus — zoom out. The kid is a man. (Or, as the case might be, the girl is a woman.)

Similarly, just a few years ago, Seattle kid-on-the-rock-block Death Cab for Cutie was young and lean, putting out promising, precocious, minimalist records. Genius one moment; awkward the next.

That was then. This is now, and DCFC has gone far away and come back, changed. "Plans," the band's big-label debut, comes out Aug. 30. If not quite a masterwork, it is often masterly, a powerful, adventurous work by a filled-out, wisened group.

Rather than resting at its base camp, where the band accumulated thousands of fans with its tender indie-pop songs, Death Cab here takes a bold, dangerous middle-of-the-night climb up the mountain. While a few minor missteps and perhaps the lack of stamina keeps them from the summit, Death Cab has made an impressive ascension.

Bankrolled by Atlantic Records and recording for the first time outside the Northwest, DCFC muscles up — producer-guitarist Chris Walla adds layers of musical complexity heretofore only hinted at on the previous records.

Money can't buy intelligence or talent. So thankfully, there's writer-singer Ben Gibbard, the mind and heart to Walla's legs and arms. Gibbard's writing on "Plans" is by far the best he's done, still achingly sincere and startlingly specific, but now a little more cynical, a little more big-picture, a little more zoomed out.

Though Gibbard's voice remains on the high end, pop-pretty, his writing gets dark and dirty — murky-dirty, that is, as Death Cab remains a classy island in a sea of pop-musical crassness.

"Plans" is by far the slickest, most polished, heavily produced and pop-oriented album DCFC has done. The most obvious difference is the prominence of piano — which is all over the album. (Unfortunately, this may lead the lazy to suggest that Death Cab is trying to be an American version of Coldplay, but the British band is far inferior, particularly on the lyrical front.)

The first notes of the album are organ, yet the song "Marching Bands of Manhattan" is very old-school Death Cab, all the hesitant, gentle angst of the 2003 album "Transatlanticism."

The second song is "Soul Meets Body," a potential hit (already on radio around the country). Just when you're lulled by the "ba-dap ba; ba-dap ba" doo-wop — reminiscent of "The Sound of Settling," the big pop song from "Transatlanticism" — into thinking the song's not really going anywhere, Gibbard throws an uppercut: "I know our filthy hands can wash one another's ... " The song remains optimistic, but the music darkens, slightly: a foreshadowing of things to come.

"Summer Skin," the third song on the album, sounds like a drum-and-piano version of the Postal Service (Gibbard's electro-pop side project), lo-fi instead of electronic. A word, here, about Jason McGerr, the drummer: superior. It's probably no coincidence that since he joined Gibbard, Walla and bass player Nick Harmer, Death Cab has made great strides. He is particularly adept at playing quietly, but with power.

One slight disappointment on "Plans" is the lack of a tenacious rock-out song, à la "The New Year," the "Transatlanticism" song that cut loose McGerr. And yet the drummer can subtly pump up a song like the new album's brilliant "Different Names for the Same Thing," which starts out like a sleepy little piano postcard, and then at the 2:20 mark morphs into an intriguing midtempo rocker, with Walla spreading a psychedelic wash over a McGerr-Harmer tango, giving the second half of the song a Pink Floyd/Beatles flavoring.

From this fourth song forward, "Plans" is eerily beautiful and unpredictable, a black rose with savage thorns. "Different Names" is followed by "I Will Follow You Into the Dark," just Gibbard and a guitar — and some of the most stunning lyrics you'll hear. It's something of a nihilistic romance, with the protagonist telling his love, "If heaven and hell decide / that they're both satisfied / and illuminate the nos on their vacancy signs / if there's no one beside you when your soul embarks / I'll follow you into the dark."

Death Cab was active during the presidential campaign, playing the Vote for Change tour, but there are no overtly political songs on "Plans." And only the most cynical could imagine "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" as Tony Blair singing to President Bush.

"Your Heart Is an Empty Room" has a powerful Flaming Lips feeling, with Walla's light, magic-dust guitar sprinkled over McGerr's lean, forward-moving brisk work.

"Someday You Will Be Loved" takes off on a "House of the Rising Sun" marching beat. It's a terrific way to say, "It's not you, really — it's me" — and Gibbard says it with such insincerity. Even if it gets clipped for a cheese-ball flick (Death Cab has a song on the "Wedding Crashers" soundtrack), "Someday" will remain a fascinating trip. Again, near the 2:20 mark, this song shifts gears, taking a sinister, Beatles-psychedelic turn toward its climax.

The eighth song, "Crooked Teeth," is a throwaway, perhaps a nod toward Wilco, though not a very convincing one. It does get a bit more intriguing and complex near its end, which serves as a good lead-in to the weirdly twisting "What Sarah Said." Again beginning with piano and drums, this song begins as a slice of emergency-room life ("Love is watching someone die") ... and then, at the 3:30 mark, it shifts — lyrically and musically — from the specific to the general, present to the future, demanding "Who's going to watch you die?" And then comes another Beatles-esque rush of an ending, so obvious you wonder whether Sarah is the Walrus.

That ending slides into the next song, the marvelous "Brothers on a Hotel Bed," which has a one-minute instrumental opening. McGerr's drumming alone would make for a great song, but there is much, much more here. Again, the piano is prominent in the song, echoing the chorus. This might be the definitive Death Cab song, full of self-doubt and confusion and powerful images of Kafka depersonalization: "He lives inside / someone he doesn't recognize."

The six-minute epic closes with the simple declaration: "I'm not who I used to be."

Nor, clearly, is the band. Darker and more mature than its predecessors, this album (which closes with the graceful, beautifully crafted "Stable Song") is much more death, less cutie.

While it's by far the best DCFC work to date, it also suggests the band is not at its destination — it's still moving, trudging up through the snow. As good as "Plans" is — and it's easily one of the best albums of 2005 — there can be hope that Death Cab will eventually unleash fiercely powerful music that will really shake listeners, and make us remember "Plans" as just the first leg of a long journey.

Tom Scanlon: 206-464-3891 or tscanlon@seattletimes.com