Rise

Format

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  7567882704CD  £6.00

Label

Atlantic

Death Cab For Cutie

Codes & Keys

It's been a slow, diligent ascent to success, but with Codes and Keys, Death Cab for Cutie may finally repeat their homeland chart success and become the latest American indie outfit to follow The National into British hearts.

The album is the seventh of a career fast closing in on a decade and a half, and it's all the better for the experience thus accrued: there's an ease and comfort about the songs that suggests they fell into place naturally, rather than suffering endless alterations; and the band seem content to let them breathe and take on a life of their own, rather than freight them with unnecessary adornment.

For all its naturalness, the most immediately striking aspect of the album is the change in the band's approach, with guitars supplanted by keyboards, both in the foregrounded piano grooves that carry songs such as "Some Boys" and the title-track, and in the textures that bring depth to them. On "Codes and Keys", the rolling piano is draped with slurred smears of strings, while the pounding groove of "Some Boys" gains urgency through the panting breaths accompanying the rhythm. Only with the fourth track, "Doors Unlocked and Open", does guitar start to make a decisive contribution, with a spangly figure riding its Neu!-beat motorik groove; before arpeggiated chords and corkscrew lead guitar figures hoist the single "You Are a Tourist" to greater heights.

Tracklist

• 01 Home Is A Fire
  02 Codes And Keys
  03 Some Boys
  04 Doors Unlocked And Open
  05 You Are A Tourist
  06 Unobstructed Views
  07 Monday Morning
  08 Portable Television
  09 Underneath The Sycamore
  10 St Peter’s Cathedral
  11 Stay Young, Go Dancing