One of the biggest “indie to mainstream” success stories of the past decade is Bellingham, Washington’s Death Cab for Cutie, named after a song most famously performed by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band in The Beatles’ film Magical Mystery Tour. They’ve just released their 7th album, which while sticking to their roots in many areas, also highlights the growth they have made over the past 11 years.

The subject matter and style of the lyrics is pretty much what we have come to expect from Gibbard. Mainly slightly bitter and sad songs about lost loves, loves that never were but could have been, and loving the wrong person but not realizing it at the time (often combining 2 of the 3). Often they seem a bit hopeful, as perhaps the author has learned from the experiences. Benjamin is known for his ability to shape his emotions into interesting metaphors while telling relateable short stories and continues to do that here. One that seems different from the norm is “Talking Bird” which appears on the surface to be about a pet, but could of course double as talking about a person, be it himself or another.

Musically we’ve still got the many layered lines which include slightly out of the norm instruments, effects, and arrangements. Most tunes are catchy, with many being upbeat which almost juxtaposes the content of the lyrics, but Death Cab has been known for that since their beginning. Somehow I feel that it is a reflection to the albums before 2004’s Transatlanticism. Chris Walla’s latest studio work has the rawness that the earlier works did, with the production being very smart, but purposefully not quite as cut and dried as the 2 albums that preceded this one. More than anything it reminds me of the aspects I loved from 2001’s The Photo Album, with some maturity and obviously more experience put behind the work. Plenty of the tunes branch out into some new areas, and a few are the “typical” Death Cab fare, with a majority combing elements of the two.

They’ve proven once again that getting signed to a major label has not diminished the quality of their material. While this work is decently different from Plans, their 2005 major label debut, somehow I can’t see fans of one not liking the other. Maybe that idea comes from me being a large fan of almost all of their work, but the idea of the comparison still stands.

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