![]() Is there any sentiment more real than “ So this is the New Year/ And I don’t feel any different”? It’s a simple thought, but “The New Year” exists in that weird zone where everybody around you is putting on an act, pretending that tomorrow is the start of a new chapter in their lives, and not just another Thursday. ![]() As such, we’re going to dive into the flow and sequencing of the album, the bedrock on which this excellent record was built. Rather than take the most obvious route to celebrate the 20th birthday of Transatlanticism - the Holy Hell route, where we simply gush about the album for 700+ words, essay-style - the occasion presents us with the opportunity to do something new and different. What might have happened to Death Cab if the record hadn’t started a bidding war? Gibbard famously said that they were “over being an indie band” in the prelude to the agonizing, year-long process of the corporate buyout, which makes you wonder how the shinier Plans might’ve turned out if it had been made in the wake of the same moderate success that greeted their previous work. The impact of Transatlanticism was absolutely massive, and its proximity to Give Up created a ludicrous snowball effect - Gibbard’s dominance as a songwriter was viewed as an unstoppable juggernaut, which led to the band’s Barsuk contract being bought out by Atlantic Records, two albums before the end. Truly, 2004 was Gibbard’s year - between this and the also-perfect Give Up, the sole album by Gibbard’s side project the Postal Service. Everyone was on a new level here, leaving the album feeling like this immaculately-designed, perfectly-recorded lightning-in-a-bottle moment that the band have been chasing, subconsciously or with full awareness, on more or less every release since. Their previous albums were produced by guitarist Chris Walla, and though he was behind the boards on this record, it feels like he leveled up considerably between The Photo Album and this one, to the point where you’d be forgiven for double-checking on whether or not Walla was behind it. ![]() That’s the name of the game with Transatlanticism - everything shines just a little brighter, hits a little harder, and feels a little (or a lot) bigger. Mostly, though, they were just showing signs of wanting to stretch out more, aim for the heavens, capture something bigger than “man with alcoholism crashes an ex’s wedding” or “man runs into a woman he used to fancy at a party, and then they smoke a cigarette together.” Death Cab frontperson Ben Gibbard is able to rend a lot of emotion from those kinds of premises (the latter, “Steadier Footing,” is one of Gibbard’s strongest songs to date), but what might it look like if the sound of the band matched the size of the emotions being felt? What began as a project where some friends wrote and performed lovelorn and starry-eyed indie rock songs was always going to lead to a world of ocean-sized compositions that can still make a full audience cry 20 years later you can hear it in the slow-moving pace of “Little Fury Bugs” or the interlude that builds the energy of “Styrofoam Plates.” If you were a particularly big Death Cab nerd, Transatlanticism’s largesse was foretold by “Stability,” a 12-minute slow-burner that’s so excellent, they recorded a miniature version of the song on the album after Transatlanticism. For the Seth Cohens of the world, the trajectory of Death Cab for Cutie on their way to album #4, Transatlanticism, wouldn’t even begin to shock you. ![]()
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