Guest Thoughts On: Kintsugi

                                               

Death Cab for Cutie’s eighth album Kintsugi is largely characterized by one period in front man Ben Gibbard’s life: life after his divorce. Their last project, Codes and Keys, released in spring 2011, was very much reflective of Gibbard’s marriage to Zooey Deschanel and was really the first remotely positive album to come from this otherwise somber indie band. The album also marked a time that, for all of the band members, family became a very significant locus and inspiration. Gibbard explained in an interview with NPR that his process of writing an album’s lyrical content echoes the life happening around him, stating, with regard to Keys specifically, “I would be remiss if I tried to continue writing in a solely melancholic voice, given the fact that now I’m a married man.” With that in mind, it becomes fairly easy to place this new body of work in context. After two years of marriage and two on his own following the couple’s 2012 split, Gibbard is once again back to delivering the melancholic ballads that Death Cab listeners have come to expect from the group’s previous work.

Without even getting into the music, we’re given a couple stylistic nods as to what this album is covering. The title of the album comes from the Japanese art form of repairing broken pottery with a kind of sealing wax to fill in the cracks. The lacquer is ordinarily mixed with powdered gold or silver and, much like Gibbard is attempting to convey with this album, is meant to display the breakage as a point of pride, rather than trying to act as if the damage had never been done to begin with; the cracks are representative of an object’s history and what it has had to endure in the course of its life. This concept is even mirrored in the album’s artwork: a distorted black and white-gray zigzag pattern surrounded by a simple white border and the name of the album in small, gold font. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the distortion is the effect of separating a photograph into six distinct rectangular segments with the distorted streaks being composed of the corresponding shade of gray or black that stitch the photo together, like a lacquer holding together shards of pottery.

Although there is certainly a gloominess to Kintsugi, it isn’t entirely lacking in its positivity. The album opens with the start of Ben’s journey since losing love. “No Room in Frame” serves as the first reflective track and seems to be written from the perspective of a Ben who has had time to find closure. The song opens with the sounds of some slight synth in the background which leads into the light plucks of a rhythm guitar and the first two lines:

“I don’t know where to begin

There’s too many things that I cannot remember.”

As he looks back on his collapsed love, Ben realizes it’s difficult at this time because he has managed to distance himself from the pain. The slow plucking gradually builds to a strum with a soft drum backing. Once the song reaches its second chorus, it really kicks into gear with a heavier emphasis on the rhythm and bass and proceeds as such until Ben reaches his closing couplet:

“And I guess it’s not a failure we could help

And we’ll both go on to get lonely with someone else.”

“No Room in Frame” has the sound of a classic Death Cab album in the best possible way. It serves to remind returning listeners that the group hasn't lost their sense of self, even after seventeen years, while also introducing new listeners to the best of what Death Cab has, can, and continues to offer.

“Black Sun” follows “No Room in Frame” and is more in the style one would expect from a painful break-up ballad. Sonically, “Black Sun” is reminiscent of the style of tracks from the 2008 album Narrow Stairs. The song uses a smooth bassline and harsh electric guitar over a light snare and kick that may remind Death Cab fans of tracks like “Bixby Canyon Bridge”, the massively popular “I Will Possess Your Heart”, and even “Pity and Fear.” It feels safe to say that once “No Room in Frame” ends and “Black Sun” begins, the listener is experiencing Ben’s thoughts during or shortly following his divorce.

The next three songs, “The Ghosts of Beverly Drive”, “Little Wanderer”, and “You’ve Haunted Me All My Life”, are our first real glimpses of something tonally different in Kintsugi. This isn’t to say that these songs are revolutionary by any means, but Death Cab takes elements from their previous work and reconfigures them to make something that sounds fairly new for the group. Death Cab has covered feeling lost and uncertain about the future, but ordinarily these ideas are tackled with stronger feelings of melancholy and morose lyricism. Instead, what we get is a contemplative approach on such negative feelings. Even “You’ve Haunted Me All My Life”, although clearly a lament, carries some vague sense of Ben acknowledging and accepting his situation. Instead of decaying in the face of an emotionally trying time, Gibbard’s positive reflections shine through, despite these songs being riddled with thoughts of personal insecurity, possibly unrequited love, and obvious feelings of being haunted by someone lost to him.

The middle of the album takes a confusing turn for the strange. “Hold No Guns” bears an air of defeatism, even more so than “Black Sun”. After three captivating tracks of relative positive vibes, we get a track of Ben almost pleading for peace. He asks “My love, why do you run? My hands hold no guns.” as if the previous tracks, in which he accepts that his love has gone, hadn’t taken place at all and he is back in the mires of his love-born depression. Whether this is simply a lapse in his optimism and a resurgence of negativity is unclear; it could also just be that there is no narrative track to this album at all. Additionally, “Hold No Guns” is followed by “Everything’s a Ceiling”, which only serves to emphasize his confusion about moving on with life with continued wails of “What am I supposed to do?” These two songs really divide the album and the transition from one segment to another is a little jarring, honestly.

After this weird wedge of wallowing, we get back on track with Ben’s emotional recovery and are presented with some refreshing pop positivity. Musically, these tracks are less interesting than their predecessors, but lyrically they they revert to something unexpected at this stage in the album. “Good Help (Is So Hard to Find)” carries a bit of a haughty feeling, with the lyrics implying that Ben feels as if he won’t be so easily replaced. “El Dorado” extends this feeling of superiority with spacey, hollow-sounding chants about wanting to feel excited for his lover’s achievements but ultimately being unable to do so. With “Ingénue”, we once again have Ben actively talking down to someone, accusing them of only being a “framed like a cartoon” when really they want to be taken more seriously, but not garnering the respect they crave; he has clearly managed to distance himself from this person by realizing that their two-dimensional personality just doesn’t cut it for him. These three tracks are the rebound that we’ve been waiting to see that lead us to the Ben that speaks to us from “No Room in Frame”.

The album concludes with “Binary Sea” and brings back, what is in my opinion, the best kind of Death Cab sound. It’s the kind of song you can lie in the dark listening to and melt away into the silence; the kind of song you put on a playlist of late night driving music if you’re not quite tired and have some lingering thoughts you just want to get away from. “Binary Sea” brings us back to the present Ben Gibbard from the beginning of the album as he looks back on his journey toward recovery and self-reclamation. Like a broken urn given a second chance by becoming greater than the sum of its cracks and deformations, Ben narrativises his struggles through Kintsugi and proves that heartbreak only brings out some of the best in Death Cab for Cutie’s songwriting and performance. While Kintsugi isn’t my favorite album of theirs, I do feel like the crisp production and alterations to traditional arrangements allowed the band to simultaneously return to form and show off some of the great things a group can do with almost two decades of experience and evolution under their belts.

And in keeping with Zeke’s album review style, I’m going to suggest you either Listen Soon or Save It. If you’re already (a) an established Death Cab fan (in which case, why the hell are reading this, just go listen to it) or (b) generally a fan of acoustic, indie rock, then refer to the former. If this would be your first time listening to Death Cab for Cutie and are a little less unsure of your opinion on this particular genre, refer to the latter because I definitely feel like this album deserves a fair shake and a thorough listen, whatever that may mean to you. Big thanks to Zeke for giving me a chance to speak my mind by reviewing one of my favorite bands. Happy listening.