(Atlantic)
In every sense, Death Cab for Cutie, from Washington's Pacific coast, have enjoyed a very American kind of success. A decade after they started releasing albums, 2008's Narrow Stairs entered the US charts at No 1, the result of constant touring, slowly building a fanbase, paying dues. You don't have to be an expert in the UK music industry to realise this is all in marked contrast to the British way of things, which now involves alighting on a band the first time they step blinking from their rehearsal room and immediately showering them with so many superlatives everyone's sick of the sight of them within six months. But it's also a very American success in that, so far at least, it's entirely failed to translate across the Atlantic. Over here, Narrow Stairs got to No 24 and spent a grand total of two weeks in the charts, proof that Death Cab for Cutie exist vaguely in record buyers' peripheral vision, like a number of perennially well-reviewed, Grammy-friendly, played-on-the-soundtrack-of-The-OC, mainstream American indie-rock bands so utterly devoid of anything approaching an image they occasionally seem a bit indistinguishable to those who don't count themselves among their fanbase.
For the benefit of anyone who hasn't been paying close attention, Death Cab for Cutie aren't the ones that Johnny Marr joined, nor are they the ones Natalie Portman told Zach Braff would "totally change your life" before slapping her headphones on his head in Garden State, her belief in the transformative powers of what sounded like some pretty ordinary acoustic alt-rock a lesson to us all in blind faith. They're the other ones, whose lead singer is married to Zooey Deschanel, and whose electronic side project the Postal Service seems to have wielded more influence on far fewer sales, even being posited as an inspiration for Kanye West's similarly synthy and sorrowful 808s & Heartbreak.
Without wishing to sound like a frightful Little Englander, American rock that doesn't transfer to Britain traditionally has a pretty baleful reputation. To borrow the phrase a shattered Clive James deployed after a couple of weeks' exposure to 70s US telly, it usually provides a salutary reminder of what you're not missing: indeed, it has a tendency to cast whatever's big in Britain at the time in a more forgiving light. How quick one was to find fault with the oeuvre of Oasis; how adventurous, innovative and original it seemed, at least compared with the US's big mid-90s rock sensation Hootie and the Blowfish. These dark thoughts hang over anyone approaching Death Cab for Cutie's work for the first time via their seventh album. But perhaps Codes and Keys is the one to change the British public's minds. After all, it's a definite step away from the style that previously failed to engage. In the past, Death Cab for Cutie dealt in guitar rock that grew increasingly confident and expansive from ramshackle beginnings, but Codes and Keys rests more on electronics: cue a degree of handwringing from longstanding fans.
Beautifully produced, there's something worth hearing on almost every track: the soft explosions of synthesiser that underpin St Peter's Cathedral, the eastern strings that arc around the title track's vocals, the burst of what sounds like wildly distorted trombone that crops up midway through Underneath the Sycamore. The problem is that this "something" is often a noise rather than the song. Opener Home Is a Fire sounds great, with its insistent bass pulse, tightly controlled mesh of feedback and Kid A-ish distorted electronic rhythm track, but there's something rounded and cosy and a bit underwhelming about the song itself: it's Local Radiohead. Something similar happens on Some Boys (immense, clanking bass) and single You Are a Tourist (cut-up vocal samples, engaging mid-80s Cure guitar line): you're struck by the distinct sense of pleasant but inconsequential songwriting propped up by beautiful arrangements and production touches, of being more engaged by the scenery than the action.
That isn't always the case. Doors Unlocked and Open is fantastic, a bold attempt to find hitherto-uncharted middle ground between the motorik urgency of Neu!, and stadium-sized expansiveness. The concluding Stay Young, Go Dancing is one of a couple of songs that dispenses with electronics, but it doesn't need them, packing an effortless Elliott Smith-like melody that just sweeps the listener along.
Pleasant songwriting propped by great production: you could level the same charge at a lot of stuff in the charts, and, in fairness, material from Codes and Keys wouldn't sound out of place if it cropped up next to Noah and the Whale on the radio. But it's not one of those US-only phenomena that brings out your Al Murray. What it doesn't do is suggest there's going to be an imminent rethink in Britain regarding Death Cab for Cutie's merits: for the time being, it seems, they're destined to remain a very American success.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/may/26/death-cab-for-cutie-codes-and-keys-review
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