Death Cab For Cutie – Kintsugi (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 45:10 minutes | 999 MB | Genre: Indie Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Atlantic Records
KINTSUGI, which follows 2011s GRAMMY Award-nominated CODES AND KEYS marks Death Cab for Cutie s first new album since the departure last year of founding guitarist/keyboardist/producer Chris Walla. Recorded in Los Angeles with Rich Costey (Franz Ferdinand, Muse, Interpol) behind the board, the album takes its title from the Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics with precious metals like gold, silver, and platinum, highlighting cracks rather than hiding them. As such, kintsugi represents a compassionate aesthetic philosophy in which damage and wear are embraced as part of an objects history.
eath Cab for Cutie’s eighth full-length album, 2015’s Kintsugi, finds the group sliding further into the studio smoothness that marked 2011’s Codes and Keys. Produced by Rich Costey — best-known for his work with Kimbra, Mew, Muse, Interpol, and Chvrches — Kintsugi is also the last album Death Cab recorded with co-founding member Chris Walla, who announced he was leaving the band during the recording process. Sentiment has always been lead singer/songwriter Ben Gibbard’s calling card, but as he starts to stare down the corridor to 40, he seems comfortable with leaving that open heart unadorned — or, better still, gussied up in a coat of studio shellac. Although there are fragile solo numbers dotted throughout the album, most of Kintsugi shimmers upon a gloss constructed out of new wave remnants and faded memories of yacht rock. Conceivably, Gibbard’s intent hews toward the latter — such clean disco-rock diversions as “Good Help (Is So Hard to Find)” and the galloping collegiate rock echoes of “El Dorado” show a yen for art — but his open heart nudges Kintsugi toward new millennial soft rock. This is a feature, not a bug. Gibbard has a gentle touch so having cushy, sugary melodies mirrored by a production equally as supple feels like a marriage of intent and sound.
Tracklist:
01. Death Cab For Cutie – No Room in Frame (04:05)
02. Death Cab For Cutie – Black Sun (04:49)
03. Death Cab For Cutie – The Ghosts of Beverly Drive (04:04)
04. Death Cab For Cutie – Little Wanderer (04:19)
05. Death Cab For Cutie – You’ve Haunted Me All My Life (04:08)
06. Death Cab For Cutie – Hold No Guns (03:03)
07. Death Cab For Cutie – Everything’s a Ceiling (03:41)
08. Death Cab For Cutie – Good Help (Is So Hard to Find) (04:47)
09. Death Cab For Cutie – El Dorado (03:38)
10. Death Cab For Cutie – Ingenue (04:31)
11. Death Cab For Cutie – Binary Sea (04:02)
