Review Summary: Cath's "And soon everyone will ask what became of you" is more relevant than ever.
There’s something inherently flawed in Death Cab’s Kintsugi and by the end of this review, I plan on figuring out what. All of the pieces of that made Transatlanticism’s highs so high are present: Chris Walla’s melodic guitar, Ben Gibbard’s longing vocals, driving darker synth notes, bitter and passive aggressive lyrics. After 2011’s Codes and Keys was so poor that Gibbard apologized for the album and its failure drove Chris Walla from the band’s ranks, one could’ve easily surmised that Death Cab for Cutie as we knew it, was finished. Their trend of being in poor middle 2000s made-for-TV soundtracks and legions of Tumblr fanfic writers fangirling over Gibbard resulted in them being unfairly lumped in with the likes of The Fray and Plain White Ts. The aforementioned bands disappeared off the map, Grey’s Anatomy’s prepubescent Tumblr fanbase grew up, and Death Cab became a victim to these factors. This all resulting in Death Cab flailing in the wind after 2008’s underrated “Narrow Stairs” flopped and 2011’s incredible failure “Codes and Keys.”
So to hear “Black Sun,” “No Room in Frame,” and “The Ghosts of Beverly Drive” emerge before the album’s release was incredibly enticing. Gibbard did his part to hype the album, pushing it as Chris Walla’s final hurrah and insisting that this album would be a return-to-form to appease the fans left with a distaste in their mouth from their previous album. When Black Sun came out, he clearly seemed to show that he wasn’t lying; everything that allured fans to Death Cab was packed into 5 minutes of lost love and anger. Walla’s melodic, echoing guitars float alongside Gibbard’s cynical vocals; “there is beauty in a failure,” he sings with a bitterness in the second verse. The chorus strips away Walla’s guitars, all left is brooding synth and the cynical vocals. “No Room in Frame” did little to stem the hype either; the delicate, slowly building sarcasm of “Was I in your way/when the cameras turned to face you? No room in frame/for two,” among the subtle electronic wisps and Walla’s melodic guitar tones. “The Ghosts of Beverly Drive” then recalled the fast-paced driving nature of Death Cab’s opus Transatlanticism, and at this point, the hype train couldn’t be stopped. It seemed like Chris Walla’s final Death Cab album was going to be their masterpiece.
Unfortunately, Kintsugi fails to live up to the quality of the first five or so songs. Much like Plans and Narrow Stairs, the second half is a massive drop. While Plans had “Crooked Teeth” in the second half and Narrow Stairs had “The Ice is Getting Thinner” towards the end, Kintsugi has very little that grabs your attention in the second half. This could very well be because Death Cab followed the current trends of releasing half of the album prior to release via singles; but the problem is that the only thing you need to hear from Kintsugi is the things you’ve already heard. There’s no other depth here. The subtle strength showed by the album’s first four songs, the slight reflection upon past Death Cab releases but strength to push forward in new, more spare, atmospheric directions leaves is absent in the second half. “You’ve Haunted Me All My Life” does nothing new and despite it being a fairly emotional tune over Gibbard’s breakup with Zoey Deschanel, it just isn’t memorable whatsoever. While there may be unrealistic expectations for an acoustic track to live up to the heights set up by the classic “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” Gibbard repeating “You’ve haunted me all my life” over an unmemorable acoustic guitar lick isn’t much to go on.
So, what I’m getting at then is that Kintsugi’s strengths lie in the first half or so of the album and how it pushes new boundaries while staying grounded in what made Death Cab such a sensation. The singles released prior to the album showcase some of Gibbard’s best writing, and shows the inherent problems in the trend of releasing more than two singles prior to an album’s release in effort to stop leaks; it creates unrealistic expectations. Maybe I would have thought more of this album if the album’s best and most creative moments weren’t revealed to us prior to the album’s release. It’s kind of like when a trailer reveals all of the best moments of a film, and creates an unrealistic expectation of what the movie will be. But, since so much of the album falls back on the safe, secure tropes of Death Cab’s established sound instead of pushing more into the realm of a new sound as they play with in songs like Black Sun or The Ghosts of Beverly Drive, this album ends up ultimately forgettable as an album. The first half, however, is the band’s best EP.
