I think he sounds perfect on Plans and it's pretty easily their second best. The last three songs on there is probably my favourite stretch of their whole discography.
I remember when narrow stairs came out the first thing I notice was the vocal change. I have no idea what it is if they use less reverb I think the best way to describe them is more "dry"
New song is very interesting. It sounds like Ben Gibbard walked onto the recording sessions for the most recent Paramore album and just started singing. Ben’s voice is so not dark and the death cab style guitar that comes in adds another interesting contrast to the darker post-[genre] vibe.
I don’t think his voice really works for me over this kind of music, and I don’t love that riff to begin with, but the guitar during the chorus and later in the track sounds nice. Their music has a tendency to grow on me though - I initially didn’t like the singles from the last one and that is now one of my favorite DCFC albums.
Yeah. His voice doesn’t really fit that sound but that kind of is what makes it interesting to me. It’s sort of like when I first heard I Don’t Know How I Survive. What won me over was how kinda harsh and crude the volume shifts in the song were. It sounded almost like a mistake. And then my next thought was “These guys left something weird and off-putting in there on purpose…that’s…kinda rad.” And the rest of that record was excellent. I still have to give everything between Plans and Asphalt Meadow a deeper relisten but I found AM and now these two new singles to all be pretty consistently astounding in regards to how many interesting creative ideas they explore and execute well for a 25+ year old indie rock band. I’m struggling to think of other indie rock bands who are still releasing new music consistently and are playing with this amount of creative juice. As I said I have to relisten to that stretch of albums after Plans but even Plans, which was super successful and in hindsight is top tier, felt like a move away from what I enjoyed about DCFC. And the immediate albums after felt like they went even further away. I tried Thank You for Today as I heard it was a ‘comeback’ album but it felt more like a decent late stage album that die-hard fans would appreciate (like how I’d like any new Nada Surf or the National record even if they weren’t really that creatively inspired). AM is the record that blew my hair back and felt like a genuinely inspired album and these singles feel like they have a similar spark.
These songs really feel the most akin to earlier Death Cab than they have in a while. Really digging the rawer feel.
This really caught me off guard in a good way. Digging the song and kudos to them for keeping things fresh this far into their career.
Most underrated bassist in the game yeah the main riff Ben sounds like its when you wear new clothes and it looks like it’s wearing you, if that makes any sense. rest of the track is sick and I also like the raw photo album like quality to it
Drum sound is as good as ever. McGerr is one of my all-time favs. Album is shaping up nicely! Stoked to get this in a month.
I was being driven to insanity because the guitar part in the chorus sounded super familiar but couldn’t put my finger on what. Then I realized, it sounds like the intro to this song:
After the first single I'm happily surprised by this one, much more intrigued to hear the album now. They're an album band anyway. I will say that putting Ben in a room with a bunch of dancers only accentuates how awkward of a dancer he is. (no, not commenting on whether I could do any better)
When I've seen Death Cab live, I'm always surprised he can still sing and isn't out of breath by the end of the show. He's constantly bobbing around. His calf muscles must be crazy haha.