Death Cab for Cutie : I Built You a Tower
If Death Cab for Cutie‘s last album, 2022’s Asphalt Meadows, was a decision to grasp the attention of its audience via a loud and apologetic pivot away from their signature sound, then their most recent, I Built You A Tower, delivers its blows by doing exactly the opposite. The album makes it abundantly clear from the very first song, “Full of Stars,” that the band are making a return to the kind of soft and soulful indie-pop with which they made their name in the ’00s.
“Full of Stars” certainly has all the hallmarks of classic Death Cab—lyrics that are emotive, even a little adolescent, without ever feeling melodramatic; a refrain so deftly imbued with meaning that it seems a defiance of conventional attitudes to pop music for it to also be so thoroughly catchy; and melodies so syrupy-smooth you could use them to sweeten your tea. This is an approach that sees plenty of use on I Built You A Tower as the band nod back toward their most iconic era, and there is no doubt that this makes for a very pleasant listening experience—but it’s a little ironic that this record is at its most interesting when it sticks closer to its immediate predecessor rather than to what the band were doing five or six albums ago.
Across this record’s 11 tracks, it’s the songs that feel like they’ve got a blooming pulse of energy radiating outward from somewhere inside them that are consistently among the most enjoyable. Some of these manifest as straightforward thrashers (well, as close to Death Cab really get to thrashers, anyway), like the surprisingly heavy-metal-adjacent “Punching the Flowers,” or “How Heavenly A State,” with its dirty, motorik post-punk inflections shunting it forwards. Some instead opt to experiment with light and shade, like “Envy the Birds,” which builds a determined, juddering sense of momentum throughout the verse only for the steadily accruing nervous energy to be utterly subsumed by the song’s tranquil, understated chorus.
The lyrics are consistently dazzling and poetic, which is probably why the songs that feel as though they’ve got a little more drive to them end up feeling more engaging than those of a more serene disposition. And to be sure, serenity is no bad thing; when the album points itself in this direction, it’s undeniably pretty—sometimes, like with the jangling, glittery riff that glides through “Pep Talk,” almost hypnotically so. But serenity becomes a bit of a problem when you realize that it’s a tricky medium through which to deliver the gut-punch, the roaring ache, the devastating emotional implosion that Ben Gibbard’s lyrics so utterly deserve.
While the records that I Built You A Tower evoke offer a genuine sense of collapsing, ragged heartache overlaid with a pretty pop-band sheen, this new record interlaces that same subject matter with a feeling of comfort and acceptance. In doing so, it takes out some of the bite. But it’s still got plenty of bark, and that should be more than enough to keep long-time fans of the band happy.
Label: Anti-
Year: 2026
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