Album Review: Death Cab For Cutie, "Narrow Stairs" (Atlantic)

Pacific Northwest alt-rockers Death Cab for Cutie [ tickets ] return with their seventh studio album, "Narrow Stairs," an altogether darker and more introspective collection of songs than anything the band has attempted to date.On the group's previous album, 2005's "Plans," frontman/lead singer Ben Gibbard traded on the sort of youthful, angsty melancholy that has been a hallmark of his songwriting since the band's beginning; by contrast, "Narrow Stairs" immediately throws listeners into a darker sort of place than they will have ever experienced before on a Death Cab record, with Gibbard retreating to the edge of America on the album's opener, "Bixby Canyon Bridge," to the edge of the Pacific Ocean, but for what? "You wonder if you're missing your dream," he sings as buzzing guitars swirl around him like ocean gales. "You just can't see your dream."The record's centerpiece comes exactly one track later, in the form of "I Will Possess Your Heart," quite simply the grandest undertaking the band has ever tackled. The song, which is the album's first single, clocks in at an audacious eight and a half minutes (the CD single included a shorter, edited version), and is one long groove that recalls early '70s Can, replete with motorik drumming and ping-ponging guitar licks. At 4:34 in, Gibbard makes his first appearance, singing in an assured voice, strangely denied passion in its phrasing, of how an apparently unwilling or indifferent romantic interest will soon belong to him. "You gotta spend some time with me love," Gibbard insists, "I will possess your heart."It is the album's one undisputed masterpiece, and sets the bar very high for the remainder of the set. In places, the band comes close to repeating the complicated and beautiful feelings contained within "Heart," but only close."Cath ...," the disc's fourth song, skates along on a familiar path, displaying the band hasn't lost its touch for power-pop, but Gibbard's suddenly mature voice steers the ship away from the group's past tendencies to go mall-emo at times."I've been slipping through the years and my old clothes don't fit like they once did," Gibbard sings on the dirge-like "You Can Do Better Than Me," which arrives near the album's mid-point. "So they hang like ghosts of the people I've been."This is not your older brother's Death Cab, as the band continues to veer left, right and all over the map throughout the album. The middle stretch bogs down a bit with pathos, but, by the time he gets around to closing the album out with the spare, morose "The Ice is Getting Thinner," Gibbard is practically spelling out the future: "We're not the same, dear," he sings. "The seasons have changed and so have we."