Review Summary: I guess?
When Ben Croshaw reviewed
Fallout 3 in 2008, he proclaimed ‘Yeah, it’s pretty good’ before immediately cutting to the credits. The moment made me crack up when I was a teenager, but it stuck with me. It was a thought that permeated my first listen of Death Cab for Cutie's tenth LP,
Asphalt Meadows.
Death Cab have been meandering for a while now. Since
Transatlanticism,
Plans and
Narrow Stairs launched them into the indie-rock fore, the Seattle five-piece have been trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle that they enjoyed in the mid-2000s. Offerings that were like old material left fans frustrated for not trying anything new, and albums that did try to deviate from the Death Cab formula never truly hit the mark.
Finally, fourteen years after
Narrow Stairs,
Asphalt Meadows sounds mostly fresh. Laden with equal parts distortion and clean, reverberating guitars, the album sounds like Death Cab have begun to mature their sound into something that might actually stick for more than a year or two. Opener I Don’t Know How I Survive explodes halfway through with a deafening chorus, before slinking back into its quiet opening. Lead single Roman Candles is similar, albeit frustratingly short. I would have loved to hear a properly big, Bixby Canyon Bridge-esque ending. Foxglove Through the Clearcut is a highlight of recent releases: a restrained, nostalgic exploration of America and its disconnection with nature. Spoken word verses juxtapose with a simple one-line chorus. It really is quite beautiful.
Unfortunately,
Asphalt Meadows is not safe from a common occurrence in recent Death Cab albums: there are some truly dreary filler tracks on display here. Here to Forever is as cookie-cutter a pop-rock song as they come. Pepper is entirely forgettable. Wheat Like Waves is
fine, but nothing spectacular. If nothing else, these songs go to show that Death Cab are not entirely free of their largely disappointing 2010s era.
The contrast between great new material and songs that sound like they’ve been on
every Death Cab album of the last few years is why I could never get properly excited about
Asphalt Meadows. For every Foxglove Through the Clearcut, there was a Pepper to follow it. It’s endlessly frustrating, because there is just about enough quality throughout the album’s 42-minute runtime to be hopeful for the future of the band.
Asphalt Meadows sounds somewhat transitionary, like Death Cab for Cutie were afraid to properly commit to the new sound. Maybe their eleventh album will finally remind us of why we fell in love with them in the first place. In 2022, though,
Asphalt Meadows leaves me with a single thought in my head.
Yeah, it’s pretty good.
