Death Cab For Cutie:
Something About Airplanes (Limited-Edition Deluxe 2-disc)

Indie-rock success story’s remarkable—and remarkably noisy—first chapter

A decade has officially passed since Bellingham, Wash.’s Death Cab for Cutie released its first official full-band LP on Barsuk, and the timing feels right for a retrospective. Despite the impressive commercial strides the band has made in recent years, odds are that plenty of recent converts haven’t yet discovered these early gems, especially the echoing guitar-and-bass groove of album standout “Your Bruise.” Even in those early days, singer Ben Gibbard displayed a brilliant intuitive sense of cadence and melody that set him apart from the rest of the bespectacled indie-rock pack. There was an emotional drama boiling over the edge of each indelible hook and elongated vowel.

Calling this reissued edition of the band’s obstinately lo-fi masterpiece Something About Airplanes “deluxe,” however, might strike the faithful as somewhat tongue-in-cheek. After all, the album sounds like it was recorded to worn-out cassette on a thrift-store boombox inside a massive, gutted, tin-walled, concrete-floored warehouse (and all this time I thought it was just the pitiful-quality MP3s I downloaded off Napster circa 2000 when I first caught wind of these guys). But even the record’s lo-fi edge can’t fully distract from the incredible songwriting and melodic sense captured on Airplanes.   
    
The album possesses the catalytic urgency of Death Cab’s early live shows. In case you didn’t happen to reside in the Emerald City in the late ’90s, Barsuk has graciously bundled the reissue with a bonus CD containing a live soundboard recording of the band’s first Seattle gig at legendary venue the Crocodile Cafe. While the music is tight and inspired, it’s endearing to hear Gibbard tune his own Telecaster after songs and Chris Walla marvel aloud at how many people showed up to the gig. It’s not difficult to hear the spark Death Cab had early on, and all too obvious why they caught fire just a few years later.

Listen to Death Cab For Cutie's "Your Bruise" from Something About Airplanes: