Ben Gibbard's band is on a major label now, but they're still as sensitive as always. Elsewhere, the New Pornographers keep rocking along.
If you take the word of the rock-critic media seriously, the fate of all of Indie Rockdom is hanging in the balance with Death Cab for Cutie's newest release. Take a deep breath, people. It'll all be okay.
Death Cab for Cutie, Plans (Atlantic Records)
The grumps who hate this band like to take potshots at their audience, labeling them all nice guys without the cajones to grab the girl, happy instead to hide behind their thick glasses and zines.
But at their best, Death Cab expressed the secret mental pathways of such Beta males — their lust, their anger, their insecurity, their selfishness. But, judging from the evidence here on this new album, Transatlanticism was clearly a miraculous exception to an otherwise pretty but lightweight career.
It's not that I mind half of it — "Soul Meets Body" never ceases to kill me when Ben Gibbard tells his girl "you're the only song I want to hear." But his sensitivity comes on so strong that the grumps will always assume he's playing passive-aggressive to get into the girl's pants. Still, he's no dummy — his warning of "You can't find nothin' at all/If there was nothin' there all along" is a sharp rebuke to the wimps in his fan base who won't take responsibility for their nonexistent love lives.
But in its low-key way, Plans is to Transatlanticism what Late Registration is to The College Dropout: the complicated guy you knew and loved isn't redefining his soundscape anymore, just solidifying his holdings.
The New Pornographers, Twin Cinema (Matador)
Whether he goes by A.C. or Carl, what's most important is that Mr. Newman is backed by this band.
Last year's lo-fi solo record was a thing of catchy beauty, but it felt a little too small. But this one ... oh, this one bounces off the walls — rocks too. It has muscles that take catchy to the next level, which is the audience's complete and total surrender.
Whether it's Neko Case's vocals adding empathy or Dan Bejar's songs adding dimensions, this is probably their best album yet. I wish everything hit with the force of "The Bones of an Idol," "The Bleeding Heart Show," These Are the Fables," "Sing Me Spanish Techno," "Twin Cinema" ... oh, the list goes on. But maybe I'm being greedy. Such pure pleasure demands and rewards my utter selfishness.
Michael Penn, Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947 (spinART)
He takes a cue from the wife, Aimee Mann, and sings in concept. And just like with the wife, the lyrical thematics don't mean as much as the musical ones.
If you care to read the press notes, this album is about ... let's see ... Los Angeles in the pivotal year of 1947 ... postwar life in a city in the midst of a transformation. And none of it will mean anything to anyone. Michael Penn enjoys antiquing his production with old-timey noises and cryptic wordplay — his melodies are as inviting as his delivery is distancing. That push-pull dynamic is a huge part of the charm, but at just over 30 minutes, including mini-instrumentals and quirky interludes, this doesn't have much meat on its conceptual bones. A work in progress that somehow made it to your record shelves.
The 88, Over and Over (Mootron)
When I caught them during a live radio performance on KCRW, very few of the songs off the new album made much of an impression, although I certainly recognized them. That's usually a bad sign — if I hear a tune in another context and immediately think, "Oh yeah! That one!" then I know the album's reaching me. But that didn't happen here, so I went back to the CD, where the songs snapped, crackled and popped like I had remembered. But I can't deny how disposable this band's material is — even the good stuff sounds minor.
It's only their second album, I tell myself. Maybe they'll figure out something to say next time.
Grandaddy, "Pull the Curtains" (from Excerpts From the Diary of Todd Zilla, V2)
Their "Blue Orchid"? Their "screw you, we still rock"? At this point, I'll romanticize any piece of tape Jason Lytle decides to throw our way. If you're a normal person, if you're not me, you'll find this slice of punkish fuzz a little truncated, a little unsatisfying. To which I say, "Screw you, it's just an EP release — the wonders will come on the later album." And then I have to be right.
Keane (Magnolia Pictures)
Lodge Kerrigan forces his audience to react to Damian Lewis' William Keane, a man slowly losing his mind after his little girl got abducted in the Port Authority bus terminal. Or maybe he was already losing his mind before that happened. Or maybe there is no little girl.
Regardless, Kerrigan sticks his camera so close to Lewis' face that he demands you finally consider the plight of the crazy people you desperately try to avoid eye contact with in your normal life. The first half pushes you to the edge of your patience — Lewis is wholly devoted to the role, but that doesn't mean he doesn't do a few actorly things that take away from the believability.
Thank god, then, for the second half, where a plot presents itself — and it's gripping and frightening in the same way the Dardenne brothers' movies prepare you for the worst and then do nothing to allay your fears.
Oliver Twist (TriStar Pictures)
Like with The Pianist, Roman Polanski is diving into the darkness — but it's a refined, elegant, handsomely mounted darkness. And again he has no use for his main character — Oliver wanders the glum streets of London and I'll be damned if I could tell you one thing about him. But if there's no real reason to make a new Oliver Twist, Polanski at least honors the book's dreary qualities — this is a kids' movie meant only for adults, ones who remember that fairy tales were often violent, scary, filled more with villains than good guys. He's doing it with style — and it is handsomely mounted.
Neil Young, "When God Made Me" (from Shelter from the Storm telethon, Sept. 9)
"Must be a gospel cover," I told the fiancée while watching Young perform his piano ballad full of the humility and grace that marked his rendition of "Imagine" after 9/11. Two days later, I realized, no, this is a new Neil Young song off the upcoming Prairie Wind album — quiet and reflective as always, just more so now that he's older and rebounding from a health scare.
I love this guy regardless, even when he's made a bunch of minor records of late. But whether it be terrorists or Mother Nature, he stands like a stern, proud grandfather, shoulders square, head raised high. You feel like he could drive you right through whatever storm there is and not a hair on your head would be harmed.
Stellastarr, "Lost In Time" (from Harmonies For the Haunted, RCA)
Who can take this band seriously? Their wide-open goth-'80s sound flirts with parody to see if anyone notices, but unlike, say, the Darkness, they balance their genre's stupidity with its merits. This lead track from the new album pushes all the right buttons, jumps into the maudlin waters, swoons and swoons and swoons. I have no idea what it means and I don't want to know. I want it to sit there in the speakers, evoking every high-school memory its indie audience wants to recollect.
More than that is asking too much of shallow delights.
Consumables is a regular overview of popular culture.
