Secret Meeting score: 70

by Dave Bertram

It’s been three years since the false dawn that defined Death Cab for Cutie’s eighth record, Kintsugi. The promise of a new start following chief songwriter Ben Gibbard’s acrimonious split with Zooey Deschanel and the departure of long-time partner in crime, Chris Walla, failed to materialise, and the record and its creative process fell flat as a result- diluted by the issues in question that clearly hung heavy. Rather than turning over a new leaf, the context of the songwriting fell back into the safety of heartbreak.

Thank You for Today finally marks that much-heralded changing of the guard. While big-budget, major label heart throb, Rich Costey (Muse, Foster the People, Chvrches) is back on the controls, Gibbard finds himself alone at the songwriting helm for the first time (Walla played guitar on Kintsugi), with band members Dave Depper and Zac Rae making their Death Cab studio debuts.

In a recent interview, Gibbard explained that rather than leaving songs half-finished for Walla to complete, the tracks that make up the new record have turned out largely in the way he first heard them, with Depper and Rae making significant melodic contributions ‘beyond his wildest imaginations.’ This description might be overplaying it slightly, but Thank You for Today is littered with melody. The singular riffs synonymous with the band’s earlier records are back in abundance, and intertwined with distant backing vocals they provide an apt backing for Gibbard’s soft, thriftier lines.

Opening tracks, We Dream We Spoke Again and Summer Years combine synths, piano and guitars with a melodic vocal delivery that draws parallels with the Pet Shop Boys. Lead single, Gold Rush, sees the band build a song around a sample for the first time – a take from Yoko Ono’s 1971, 17-minute opus, Mind Train – with its Beck-infused verse and chorus featuring a tapestry of vocal harmonies.

Dream pop third single and album highlight, Autumn Love, brings together some of the group’s best attributes – richly layered walls of strummed acoustic and catchy electric riffs, a gradual build towards a grand release and a chorus hook that’s locked-in after one listen. “Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, this autumn love,” Gibbard coos – “Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, it’s not enough.” While closer 60 & Punk sees him take to the keys and display a lyrical structure that continually threatens to fall off the edge in a lament to a friend struggling with alcohol addiction.

This is the first time a Death Cab record hasn’t focused solely on the making and breaking of relationships. Now in his forties and with life possibly more stable and certain than at any time before, Gibbard delves into new and less emotive topics here, introspectively documenting moments along the journey to where he stands today.

The Killers-esque When We Drive regales an old friendship where he recounts lessons learned from past experience – “I can’t expect you to be honest, to be faithful every day to the end, I just need you to always be a friend.” The Frightened Rabbit-flavoured Autumn Love is brimming with joyful escapism where Gold Rush and You Moved Away take a political line, bemoaning the negative impact of gentrification on local communities and cultures in his hometown of Seattle.

But in the process of moving on, inevitably some parts are left behind. A sizeable chunk of Gibbard’s reputation as a songwriter is built on his ability to pen deeply felt and detailed lyrics, risking awkward phrasings and word spaghetti to deliver a complex and relatable story to the listener – synchronisation and order were a second thought as lines would often flow over the sides.

Thank You for Today finds Gibbard in a similar economical mode to his previous album. His literary passages feel more top-level, written politely between the margins on the whole and missing the detail of previous works that give the listener the depth to explore. Some of his metaphors about road networks and hurricanes feel – as on Kintsugi – a little undercooked and there are several rhyming couplets which are wide of the mark – “You used to be such a delicate kid/ A lonely fish in a sea full of squid”, he sings on Hurricane.

In all, while it lacks the lyrical dexterity of the likes of Transatlanticism, among others, Thank You for Today finally sees the five-piece move on to pastures new. This album certainly has its moments, but it’s difficult not to think his best work surfaces from those dark places he no longer walks.

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