The New York Times talks Death Cab

Aside from rampant droppings of things like Pitchfork, the eclecticism that came out of the Seattle area post-grunge, "The O.C.", the hijinx of major label recording processes and Ben Gibbard's appearance, the article had a letter bomb of a passage in this:

Mr. Gibbard wrote several songs in the same shack that inspired Jack Kerouac to create his disheartened late-career memoir, “Big Sur.”  In “Bixby Canyon Bridge” Mr. Gibbard talks to Kerouac, revealing that he too was searching for some kind of transcendent experience there, but that he ended up learning nothing about himself. “It started getting dark,” Mr. Gibbard sings.  “I trudged back to where the car was parked/no closer to any kind of truth/as I must assume was the case with you.”  The song ends with crashing waves of guitar, evoking Kerouac’s “heartless breakers busting in on sand higher than earth and looking like the heartlessness of wisdom.”  You bring all the salvation you will get, this record seems to say.  And you hope that’s enough.

So, it seems that everyone agrees that it's a darker, more morose record (if you can believe that can happen), but not one that will be responsible for the end of the band's popularity or any sort of slump, for that matter.  But, really, who cares what they all think.  What matters is your reception, dear readers, as you're the ones who'll (maybe) buy it.  Right?  Narrow Stairs is out May 26.

(mp3)    Death Cab for Cutie - Long Division

Godspeed!