The band's eleventh studio album was recorded in a three-week period, expanding on everything that makes Death Cab so celebrated.
If at any point you’ve forgotten how to feel – truly feel – Death Cab for Cutie will pull you back. After more than 25 years, one of indie rock’s most enduring acts still knows how to crack us open, and that’s as clear as ever on their eleventh album, I Built You a Tower.
The record was written off the back of a busy and emotionally heavy stretch for the band – frontman Ben Gibbard’s marriage had come to an end, and an extensive 20th anniversary tour had them performing both Death Cab’s Transatlanticism and Plans back to front, as well as the Postal Service’s Give Up – a project of Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello. Even still, the record doesn’t lose a thing of what made Death Cab so revered in the first place: poignant, clever and honest lyricism, melodic bass lines and driving beats, contrasted by gentler, bittersweet lullabies.
Released on independent label ANTI- Records, Epitaph’s sister label, I Built You a Tower marks the end of the band’s 22-year period signed to major label Atlantic. The shift to an independent label often signals a sense of freedom – something that radiates through the 11-track album. It’s unquestionably Death Cab for Cutie – luring us back into their world with the sweet and gentle ‘Full of Stars’, immediately followed by the driving, angst-filled and math-rock-ish guitars in ‘Punching the Flowers’. Immediately, you know that I Built You a Tower has arrived with the band in full flight.
Catch up on all the latest interviews and features here.
Tracked in just three weeks at Animal Rites, producer John Congleton’s own studio in Los Angeles, the band took a live, raw approach. Guitarist and keyboardist Dave Depper reflects on this: “We didn’t listen back to a single thing we’d recorded until about two weeks into the process.”
Returning to John Congleton – who produced their previous record Asphalt Meadows – meant the early days of tracking weren’t lost to getting acquainted. “We were all good friends and had one successful record under our belts, so we were able to hit the ground running from day one. In fact, ‘I Built You A Tower (a)’ was more or less entirely tracked the first day, after we’d loaded the equipment that morning.”
Since the band formed in 1997, the recording process has evolved significantly; the boundary between the studio and home is more blurred than ever. While most of the record was tracked at Animal Rites, the band also leaned into the flexibility of home recording. “At this point, home recording technology is so advanced, and we are all such audio nerds, that anything we are bringing from home into a professional studio can more or less blend in with whatever we are tracking there.” For the band and Congleton, whatever serves the song is the winning take. “We tried to keep this record as lean and mean as possible, and we wanted to ‘better’ things from the original demos wherever possible. But sometimes the charm of the original recording is impossible to recreate in the studio – for instance, almost everything on ‘Trap Door’, except the rhythm section and the lead vocals, was recorded in our home studios.”
Some artists will record in a weekend, others over six months – either way, three weeks is fast by any measure. While more time can lend to getting the fantastical “perfect” take, there’s a particular magic in capturing a moment in time – the emotion, the shared goal and the adrenaline.
“I think all of us are pretty tired of spending endless amounts of time in an expensive recording studio, recording countless takes in search of some imaginary level of perfection. At this point in our career, we are more interested in capturing the spontaneity of the moment, as well as committing to arrangement decisions early and not overthinking things.”
Like Death Cab’s entire discography, I Built You a Tower is intimate, authentic, honest and confident, and after 25 years, it’s no surprise they know exactly what they’re doing.
“The new record is the fastest we’ve ever made an album and I think the results speak for themselves. It’s not a coincidence that it’s the most fun we’ve ever had making a record, too.”
Catch Death Cab for Cutie in Australia in November by heading here.
