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PO Now: Death Cab for Cutie - Thank You For Today - August 17


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49 minutes ago, andables said:

DCFC is streaming their set in London right now and playing a few new songs: 

 

Hopefully some videos pop up soon, I'd like to hear them. Just tuning in now, but I think they're in their oncore because it says it started streaming 2 hours ago, and they're playing the hits. 

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Just got back from the Scala, it was OK. My first time seeing them post-Walla, and I'm not sure they benefit from the seven layers of keyboard soup that every song now gets enveloped in. Slightly strange set, Movie Script Ending was fantastic and it was nice hearing some other old tracks, but if you're going to play three songs off Codes & Keys then one of them had better fucking be Underneath the Sycamore. Still, Jason McGerr is a monster drummer and those offset Fano guitars Dave Depper plays are beautiful. 

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On 6/19/2018 at 5:29 PM, kylet said:

Does The Photo Album/Something About Airplanes really differ? All their album covers are pretty simple. 

Simple, but they didn't look so cheap. Something About Airplanes had a die-cut cover, and the Photo Album had beautiful packaging overall that fit well with the theme of the album.  
This one looks like a shitty Instagram ad. The 3D effect to the typeface is dated, and the gradient in the "Thank you for today" lettering is just...bad. 

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Northern Lights is a banger. Gold Rush feels slightly better coming in after Summer Years, but it's still feels like a half-assed Beck/Eels pastiche. Near/Far gets closer to Postal Service territory than any other Death Cab song I can think of.  Ben definitely writes differently on a Mustang than thicker necked guitars. Overall it's fine, definitely misses that dash of weirdness that Walla brought though, and I'm still not convinced this band needed a full time keys player. 

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So, after 5+ listens through, I'm on the opposite end of the opinion spectrum on this one...I really don't like it as a whole. At least half of the album seems like filler, and so many of the tracks have the same churning drum beat and tired one-liner cliches (You Moved Away, Near/Far, Autumn Love, When We Drive especially). A lot of the guitar riffs sound similar as well, or just things I feel I've heard before in my least favourite DCFC songs. You can also tell that a handful of the tracks on this thing were shoe-horned in to be radio-friendly. Surely influenced by the major label but it's never been quite as obvious in the past as it is now. "Oh oh oh ohhh! This autumn love...Oh oh oh ohhhh! Is it not enough!" ...You sell those Ford Escapes, Ben! 

(I have nothing against them making money from their music, as they always have...but this is just lazy).  

 

Overall, the album is not terrible but it is awfully boring and entirely forgettable. It has the same listless vibe as Codes & Keys, which I think is DCFC's worst album by far.

I will say that the one positive thing about the album is the closer, 60 & Punk. With the exception of the random synth swell after the second chorus (around 2:31), it's the only song with the detail-filled lyricism I'm used to from Ben Gibbard. I also really enjoy the piano as it reminds me of Passenger Seat, What Sarah Said and all those greats. Funny how the best song on the record is one that deals with musicians growing old and becoming irrelevant. 

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