Death Cab for Cutie
Thank You for Today
Release Date: Aug 17, 2018
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Atlantic
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Album Review: Thank You for Today by Death Cab for Cutie
Fairly Good, Based on 12 Critics
Based on rating 4/5
Finally, for this new incarnation of Death Cab for Cutie, a clean break. The parting of ways with founding member Chris Walla loomed large over 2015's 'Kintsugi’. The guitarist and producer signalled his intent to leave half way through the process of making that record, but still completed work on it, meaning that his replacements - Dave Depper on guitar and Zac Rae on keys - felt like hired hands as they toured the album, not quite fully-fledged members just yet.
Based on rating 8/10
Thank You For Today is the first Death Cab For Cutie release that sees long-time members Ben Gibbard, Nick Harmer and Jason McGerr joined by new members Dave Depper and Zac Rae. These two may be officially new to the band, but they have been part of Death Cab's touring band since 2015, and therefore are no strangers to the alt-rock veterans. They are also familiar with album producer and mixer Rich Costey, who also produced 2015's Kintsugi.
Based on rating 7/10
This is a new chapter for Death Cab for Cutie: the Seattle indie rockers' first record without founding member Chris Walla. Honing in on the sound that they create best, the band have taken a selective approach to their ninth studio album, Thank You for Today. The album couples the familiarity of their pensive guitars and Ben Gibbard's evocative lyrics with sonic flourishes that add atmosphere. "Your Hurricane" is a carefully crafted lament, grounded by Nick Harmer's bass playing and Jason McGerr's precise drumming, while Gibbard ….
Based on rating 3.5
There’s a comforting familiarity about Death Cab For Cutie which means that part of you is always transported back to the early 2000s when you listen to them. It could be the fact that they’re so associated with one of the most popular TV shows of that time, The OC, or that one of Ben Gibbard’s most iconic songs, Such Great Heights (recorded by his offshoot band The Postal Service) was released around that time. But they seem to be proof that no matter what changes, some things stay the same.
Based on rating 7/10
With Thank You for Today, Ben Gibbard moves Death Cab for Cutie into a new phase, one that reflects his newly minted middle age and one without Chris Walla. It's a new beginning, but one that announces itself with a whisper. Thank You for Today simmers in a fashion that's not unfamiliar to Death Cab, but there's a definition to the composition and production of its ten songs that keeps the album far from the reaches of mood music.
Based on rating 6.5/10
After twenty years of consummate service, what's a reasonable expectation for a new Death Cab For Cutie album? Excelling among the late 90s lo-fi blitzkrieg, proceeded by their valourisation as *the* quintessential 00s indie rock sound by The OC, and their subsequent - probably inevitable and categorically unfair - degeneration into cultural pastiche as the talismans for earnestly twee heartbreak, and their partial critical re-reappraisal - or forwardlash - that their greatness is rooted in their earnestly twee heartbreak; Death Cab's arc as a band feels complete, and everything from now on feels surplus to requirements. Is it sound to anticipate a record as epochally brilliant as Transatlanticism or a song as singularly gorgeous as 'What Sarah Said'? I don't think so. Now, given their previous album, 2015's Kintsugi, was both melodically good and conceptually interesting, you could argue that Death Cab have plenty left in the tank and that anything other than their absolute all is complacency at best and a dereliction of duty at worst, but you'd be an idiot.
Based on rating 3/5
Following the divorce-like departure of founding member Chris Walla, Death Cab fans get a new stepdad in his replacement, the Oregon songwriter Dave Depper. The result is perhaps a little too harmonious For thousands of side-fringed, plaid-shirted young teens, the songwriting duo of Ben Gibbard and Chris Walla was akin to a second set of parents. Between them and their Death Cab For Cutie bandmates, they soundtracked heartbreak and hormones throughout the late ’90s and noughties, drafting up the indie-rock rulebook in the process.
Based on rating 6/10
A lot has changed for Washington State's Death Cab for Cutie since they rode roughshod into pop culture consciousness in the early Noughties, namedropped relentlessly on US teen drama The OC and soon becoming the darlings of floppy-haired emo kids everywhere. 2003's Transatlanticism was the band's high-water mark, a collection of fragile pop songs which catapulted them beyond their previous cult status. Cue international stardom, an A-list marriage (since dissolved), and four subsequent major label records. Though frontman Ben Gibbard drew much of the attention in their breakthrough years, guitarist and producer Chris Walla was perhaps equally influential in their success, before calling it a day on his time in the band in 2014.
Based on rating 6.0/10
On "Gold Rush," the first single from Thank You for Today, Ben Gibbard waxes about the many ways his native Seattle has changed over the past two decades, mourning memories of old buildings and intimate moments under street lamps before sighing: "Please don't change/Stay the same. " The accompanying video follows suit, a dorky-haircut take on the Verve's iconic "Bittersweet Symphony" visual that features Gibbard getting knocked around by rude passersby during a daytime neighborhood stroll, ending up trapped in a sea of pedestrians glued to their phones. The get-off-my-lawn-ness of it all isn't fresh territory for Death Cab, a band reputed for cloying sincerity that has nonetheless occasionally showed some teeth regarding the ephemera of modern life.
Based on rating 4.5/10
Age is the great enemy of rock music, or it used to be until all the youthful bands grew old and went on never-ending nostalgia tours. Death Cab for Cutie aren't close to that, but neither are these Pacific Northwest indie stalwarts bright young things anymore. Active for over two decades, it's no surprise the spark has died down. Luckily for Death Cab, this isn't such a problem.
Opinion: Very Good
Nine records in and Ben Gibbard's perspective has changed a lot. And right now, Death Cab For Cutie is the vehicle for him to voice this change in arguably his most exposed state. You can pick up how his tone has shifted somewhat, from sprawling storytelling to now more vulnerable pieces of poetry ripped straight from his journal. A bare-boned sound to address the turmoil and right now, the quiet in his life.
Opinion: Fairly Good
To spend 21 years as a band, releasing nine albums over that duration, is some feat for an indie rock band in the modern era, yet 'Thank You For Today' in many ways feels like the follow up record to the second coming for Death Cab for Cutie. The Seattle-based band have come a long way since they shuffled onto the scene as a band of unlikely shaggy haired kids armed with a deft collection of intricately woven pop songs. Despite having ventured through a relentless tide of pop culture obsession, major label disputes and a high-profile celebrity breakup, Ben Gibbard and co.
'Thank You for Today'
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