After everything that had happened around the band, I was convinced they would take a longer break.
When Death Cab finished touring Asphalt Meadows in 2023, they almost immediately headed out for another 56 shows. This time, Ben Gibbard took the stage twice every night, performing Give Up by his side project The Postal Service and Transatlanticism, artistically the most important Death Cab for Cutie album, in full. In later interviews, Gibbard admitted that the tour had been extremely demanding. At the same time, he was going through a divorce from his wife, Rachel Demy, while the band were leaving Atlantic Records after 22 years. And that was not all.
I had a serious problem with Asphalt Meadows, the previous Death Cab album. The band themselves did not seem entirely sure what they wanted from it. A few days before its release, they published a short acoustic session featuring the new material. Roman Candles, Here to Forever, and the other songs sounded excellent when played on three guitars. They showed off the band’s gift for melodic songwriting. The studio versions, however, were heavy and overloaded with arrangements that did not quite work. All their charm disappeared. The band apparently reached a similar conclusion, because six months after the release of Asphalt Meadows, they put out an alternative version of the album - this time with acoustic versions of the songs.
Instead of heading to the Bahamas after all that, the musicians locked themselves in a studio. In just three weeks, working with John Congleton, they turned these experiences into Death Cab for Cutie’s eleventh album. You can hear echoes of the joint tour with The Postal Service, Ben Gibbard’s difficult personal experiences, and the lessons learned while recording Asphalt Meadows.
The band stopped deconstructing their songs and opted for delicate, uncluttered arrangements. The album opens with Full of Stars - a classic Gibbard ballad built around vocals, guitar, and piano. The sadness long associated with the Seattle band is here, but so is a sense of comfort. That mood stays with the album until the very end. Further in, we find moments that could have appeared on Transatlanticism. Pep Talk, for example, develops just as interestingly as Expo ’86. There are also songs that recall The Postal Service’s Give Up, including the sparse, electronic-tinged Stone Over Water and Trap Door.
The first single, Riptides, is built around a repetitive motif. It shows that Gibbard can still capture difficult emotions in a simple line: These days I say goodbye without opening my mouth... There are more moments like this, especially on the title track, the best song on the album. Its guitars speak to one another like they did on the band’s records from the beginning of the century. I Built You a Tower is not an album of major changes, but it sounds like Death Cab for Cutie have regained their freedom and confidence.
Perhaps some of the credit goes to ANTI-, the label they joined after leaving Warner. Ben Gibbard admitted with relief that nobody would play him new Kid Rock songs during label meetings anymore. Maybe, for the first time in 22 years, nobody is making them think in terms of singles. The pressure has lifted, and the songs they have always wanted to play are back. Then keep playing them.