Bear with me here because I'm about to make a bold statement: "We Have The Facts And We're Voting Yes" is the second best Death Cab for Cutie album ever made. That's right. I said it. Next to "Transatlanticism", "WHTFAWVS" is this bands album with the highest merit, artistically and so on.
I will not address this album by individual song, for each has a level of integrity fairly well addressed in the other reviews. I would ask you instead to consider this album as a whole, its greatest strength being its imperfection. It has been mentioned and anyone who has listened to the album can hear full well that this is not a perfect album. Ben Gibbard had to play drums on most of the tracks and drumming does not appear to be his strong suits. The album may err on the side of being too reverb heavy, its production quality perhaps only surpassing "Something About Airplanes," as Christopher Walla's production skills are not as developed and respectable as they are now. Lyrically, the album is not as straightforward as the other albums, allowing for more of the subtle allusions to Gibbard's penchant subjects (Jack Kerouac, West Coast Roads, and Wuthering Heights on the songs Lowell,MA, 405, and Company Calls respectively). Walla doesn't stray very far from his typical guitar parts, made up of chord arpeggiations tinged with typical Fender twang.
Now that we've laid out the reasons why everyone finds this album to be a typical album of early career development, here's why I think this is considerably more than that. This album is great because of its blatant imperfections. It's roughness around the edges makes it different, which in today's world, should be held sacred. While Plans and Transatlanticism are great in their song writing and production, there are other albums out there made exactly like it, through the same process with similar results. Death Cab's drummer left them during the recording of "WHTFAWVS," Death Cab had little commercial success with "Something About Airplanes," and didn't necessarily have a lot of funds or stability on which to create this sophomore effort. This is an album created out of the desperation of a developing band. This is an album created because Death Cab for Cutie wanted to keep going and this album is better for that.
4 Bumps | Bump |
