It’s hard to do an EP right. Finding three to six tracks that lend themselves to one another and don’t seem like they should be part of something larger is a difficult task. Death Cab for Cutie previously has dealt with the EP masterfully; 2000’s release of The Forbidden Love EP was picturesque, to say the least. The band has since proven three times that it can master the art of the EP just as thoughtfully as the album.
Now, nine years later, as a follow-up to the brilliant-to-critics, peeving-to-fans Narrow Stairs, Death Cab tries its hand at the art a fifth time with Open Door. And, it seems like it has ditched its classic painful honesty for positivist, self-improvement books.
The five-track EP starts off at full speed with “Little Bribes.” The sound is Narrow Stairs on Prozac, and that’s saying a lot. The beat is driving, the vibrato heavy, the metaphors cutesie: “You pretend that every slot machine is a robot amputee waving hello / The people stare into their eyes and then they feed them little bribes and then they go.” It’s enough to make a long-term fan press stop, but Open Door offers more promise down the line.
“Diamond and a Tether” slows things down a bit; Ben Gibbard’s voice simultaneously softens up and loses its showiness. The melancholy band to which we love to cry peeks its head out of the water a few times to a feedback-laden background: “I know you can’t hold out forever / Waiting on a diamond and a tether / From a boy who won’t fly / But who will take to the skies / If he thinks you’re about to say goodbye.”
With its complex, driving riff and a clappy beat, “My Mirror Speaks” sounds like a more current “Sound of Settling.” The EP’s title is showcased amid the self-analytics: “I always fall in love with an open door / With a horizon on an endless sea.”
“I Was Once a Loyal Lover” has a scratchy and obscured demo-esque background that gives off Something About Airplanes vibes, but once again, the vocals and tempo are far too bright. The chorus, “And you can’t even begin to know / How many times I’ve told myself ‘I told you so’ / And you can’t even begin to believe / There’s so many bridges engulfed in flames behind me,” is catchy and repetitive. Don’t let the title fool you; it seems as if heartrending Death Cab with its hopelessly vast minor soundscapes are a born-again band.
“Talking Bird (demo)” is acoustic and stripped-down to vocals and a single mandolin. There is no polish to the vocals. This no-frills version is preferable to its forced-soulful counterpart on Narrow Stairs.
As far as EPs go, Death Cab can do and has done better. As a follow-up, it seems like it is following the critic-pleasing trend embarked upon with Narrow Stairs. The five-song collection isn’t bad — it just doesn’t sound like your typical Death Cab EP.
Read More
The best albums of 2014
By Noah Zeidman | December 4, 2014Across genres, it has been a pretty great year in music.
Top 10 movies of 2014
December 4, 2014This has been an excellent year for film, offering everything from gripping blockbusters to innovative personal films.
Iggy Azalea is “Reclassified”
December 4, 2014It has become common practice among music artists to repackage their albums in an effort to simultaneously boost single sales and dish out new content by slightly renaming the album or slapping “Deluxe” onto the title.
