Transatlanticism
The New Year is a strong opener, particularly for these unabashedly light rockers. What's odd is that two of the lightest tracks on the album follow in its footsteps... so when I listen to the record I tend to zone out and miss the entire second track. That's a shame, because, well, it's good. The only reason I can think of for this arrangement is that there are only a handful of songs on Transatlanticism that rock, even by DCFC's standards, and they can't afford to use them all up to early on. This leads us to one of my major issues with the record: there are only one or two songs on the record where singer Ben Gibbard actually seems to stretch himself -- the rest of the time he might as well be phoning it in. He has decent range, however, so people who like their singers to enunciate clearly will be pleased.
The record's theme, ostensibly, is long-distance relationships. As someone who is presently in just such a relationship, I have to say that Transatlanticism didn't resonate with me in this respect. The title track is an obvious effort to come up with an anthem for skinny white boys in long-distance relationships (a demographic into which I loosely fit), but while it's a good song with interesting and infectious melody and harmony lines, it feels as though they spend the whole song building to something and never quite get there. Jason McGerr's touch on the drums is just too light to take the song into the epic territory they're reaching for here, but he must have done it on purpose since there are other places on the album where he does hit them a bit harder.
That's not to say that I dislike the album. There are a couple of tracks that I consistently skip, but on the whole, DCFC's songwriting is engaging. While I'm not exactly in a rush to listen to their newer release, Plans, Transatlanticism will continue to see some play in my stereo.
The Record: Transatlanticism (Death Cab for Cutie), 2003
One-line verdict: Not bad.
Standount Tracks: The New Year, Transatlanticism, We Looked Like Giants
Standout Lyric: "You'd skip your early classes and we'd learn how our bodies worked."
The record's theme, ostensibly, is long-distance relationships. As someone who is presently in just such a relationship, I have to say that Transatlanticism didn't resonate with me in this respect. The title track is an obvious effort to come up with an anthem for skinny white boys in long-distance relationships (a demographic into which I loosely fit), but while it's a good song with interesting and infectious melody and harmony lines, it feels as though they spend the whole song building to something and never quite get there. Jason McGerr's touch on the drums is just too light to take the song into the epic territory they're reaching for here, but he must have done it on purpose since there are other places on the album where he does hit them a bit harder.
That's not to say that I dislike the album. There are a couple of tracks that I consistently skip, but on the whole, DCFC's songwriting is engaging. While I'm not exactly in a rush to listen to their newer release, Plans, Transatlanticism will continue to see some play in my stereo.
The Record: Transatlanticism (Death Cab for Cutie), 2003
One-line verdict: Not bad.
Standount Tracks: The New Year, Transatlanticism, We Looked Like Giants
Standout Lyric: "You'd skip your early classes and we'd learn how our bodies worked."