Albums Of The Year 2008 #4 Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs

Death Cab beef up their sound on this latest effort, but lose none of their appeal.

Death Cab For Cutie @ Birmingham Academy 15.7.08

Setlist
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Bixby Canyon Bridge
The New Year
Why You'd Want To Live Here
Crooked Teeth
Long Division
Grapevine Fires
A Movie Script Ending
Company Calls
Title Track
Soul Meets Body
I Will Follow You Into The Dark
I Will Possess Your Heart
Cath...
No Sunlight
The Sound of Settling
Marching Bands of Manhattan
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Your Bruise
Title and Registration
Expo '86
Talking Bird
Transatlanticism

Being as it was Death Cab, you know its going to be a good night - but a couple things stopped it short of being a great one:

For the opening songs the sound was poor, with at least one of the guitars not working properly - really spoiled Bixby Canyon Bridge for me.

Audience participation was non-existent, whether it was because there were too many older songs from albums that aren't readily available over here or a case of too cool to dance I don't know - but only Soul Meets Body seemed to get people going.

No Chat. Whether Ben felt burnt when his compliment before I Will Follow You Into The Dark feel flat on the ears of those cynical Brummies, but barely a word was spoken all night. I think at least an intro to the older songs would've made it a more fun, communal experience.

Death Cab for Cutie: Cath...

This is the new Death Cab video for Cath... which probably should be renamed Zzzz... - as this video set in a church ends up more of a funeral than a wedding for all the action going down

I Will Possess Your Album Dammit!

I was pretty sure with all the excitement surrounding the new Death Cab album we'd have had a leak by now, but aside from a couple of April fools not a peep has been heard leaving fans to check out bootlegs of recent live dates and to get any clues as to what to expect from Narrow Stairs.

Now its not unheard of for the major labels to keep their heavy-hitters latest opus under lock and key till the last possible minute, but with the sheer amount of reviews and promo everywhere ahead of the release date it doesn't seem that they've followed this route for Death Cab, which is slightly frustrating for a dirty digital pirate like myself - but patience is a virtue and I'll be keeping an eye on diditleak in the meantime till I get my hands on the CD in May.