Reviews

Death Cab For Cutie – I Built You A Tower

Forged in the furnaces of nostalgia of despair, I Built You A Tower is Death Cab’s strongest record in two decades and a powerful return to form.

Death Cab For Cutie’s eleventh album emerged from a period of intense nostalgia—anniversary tours, a Postal Service reunion—and personal despair for chief songwriter Ben Gibbard. Both are audible throughout its eleven tracks, which together constitute the strongest Death Cab record since 2005’s Plans.

The established-band-returns-to-form narrative is something of a cliché in music writing, but I Built You A Tower genuinely feels like a significant moment in the career of these indie rock veterans—and it is one this critic didn’t see coming.

Earlier this week, in my review of aethermead, the new record from Of Montreal, I reflected on how I had lost interest in that band’s new material some time ago, instead choosing to focus my efforts on the thrill of the new. Death Cab, another favourite from my early twenties, suffered a similar fate. But in my mid-forties, I’m learning to appreciate the refreshing perspectives that established artists in their 30s, 40s, 50s, or even beyond, bring to their music. At a time when numerous friends are navigating divorce and grief, a record like I Built You A Tower hits harder.

I Built You Tower also sees the band returning to their independent label roots with Anti-, after a two-decade stint with Atlantic that has seen them become a bona fide arena attraction. And sonically, tracks like the contemplative “Stone Over Water” and spiky standout “Punching the Flowers” feel like throwbacks, too, as Death Cab revisit classic early-career motifs with the benefit of added emotional weight.

“Riptides” is another highlight, with its bridge providing a neat summation of Gibbard’s current state (“And though I'm feeling fine roughly half the time/There's a fatal flaw in my heart's design”). The surprisingly dissonant closer I Built You A Tower (b) is also startlingly frank, as Gibbard explores one of the paradoxes of separation—“I’m learning how to live without you/But these ruminations are all about you”—before concluding “it makes me tired, so tired.”

I Built You A Tower is a record about coming to terms with the end of a relationship. It’s not about finding happiness or total resolution—hopefully, Gibbard finds this in his near future. Until then, I hope he and his bandmates can enjoy a well-earned victory lap after producing their best work in two decades.

I Built You A Tower is out now via Anti-.