The Indie veterans return with all the usual quality you would expect.
It is easy to fall into hyperbole but if any band deserved to be called “seminal” in the field of indie music then the American band Death Cub For Cutie are right up there. They ought to be a household name, though despite success they don’t have the same name recognition as some of their more successful peers. The name comes from a song by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band from their 1967 album Gorilla. As they approach thirty years in the music business this is album number eleven. DCFC have flitted in different directions, quite emo at times in their earlier work, but are generally regarded for melody and sensitivity within the field of indie-rock.
I Built You A Tower is every bit as professional and well made as you would expect from such polished veterans. It is something of a reaction to their previous tour. Benjamin Gibbard had been on stage for hours at a time celebrating milestones for anniversaries of revered albums Transatlanticism and Plans (as well as fronting a reunion of spin-off band the Postal Service) whilst their was major upheaval in his personal life. I Built A Tower was assembled mostly in three weeks of sessions. Gibbard says, “There’s this need to find a place in ourselves to put loss and grief,” he explains. “A place that can hold it so we can move on with our lives. But there are these moments where the trauma breaks out of that shell we created for it.” Having purged any feelings of nostalgia they were ready to create something new.
Three singles proceeded the album and they were all great tracks. ‘Punching The Flowers’ is DCFC at their absolute best. It eschews ordinariness by using off-beat drumming and heavy bass lines whilst Gibbard’s voice is sweetness above it that belies the content. That it goes directly into the more straight forward but melodically beautiful ‘Pep Talk’ sums up why they have been so successful in a nutshell. ‘Stone on The Water’ takes a bit longer to get going but eventually gets there.
There is much pathos in the lyrics. A relationship crumbling in a variety ways. You have to concentrate to be aware of that though. It is at its most obvious on Trap Door:
“I pledge myself to your misery
I kneel at its throne
Respecting your proclivity
To languish on your own
Like a snowflake starting an avalanche
It always depends
On where you land
There’s a trap door in your heart
That I’m free-falling through
I can only get so close
So close to you”
The slower, sadder numbers musically are contrasted by much higher tempo out and out rockers. The album is at at its best on the faster tracks like ‘How Heavenly A State.’ ‘Riptides’ bridges a gap between the two.
If you are in the mood for a party album then you will be looking in the wrong place here. If you want well constructed indie from a set of master craftsmen who are in a reflective mood, then it is an absolute winner.
Essential Tracks: ‘Punching The Flowers,’ ‘Envy The Birds,’ ‘How Heavenly A State’ and ‘Riptides.’
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