(pair of mirrors)

Death Cab For Cutie - Codes and Keys 

Death Cab for Cutie has always been a band whose main criticism is that of boredom. Boring melodies, boring subject matter, boring lead singer and his boring wife. To a true, longtime fan, to a real Death Cab appreciator, this stamp of boredom is somewhat of a rite of passage. You might think it’s boring, but you just can’t hear what I can hear. Have you actually listened, really listened, to “Photobooth?” To “405”? Have you felt the earth quake when “We Looked Like Giants” breaks? 

Almost everything that Death Cab For Cutie has released has at one point put at least someone to sleep - that’s not the problem. Pretty songs tend to have that effect on non-appreciators. The problem is that the new record, Codes and Keys, has been putting me, a long time, die-hard fan, to sleep. Codes and Keys  is the boringest record I’ve heard all year. 

There’s nothing wrong with the 11-song collection, really. Ben Gibbard and Co. have been writing, playing, and recording music for long enough to avoid any obvious first-timer screw-ups. “Home is a Fire,” the opener, is actually almost pleasant. But there’s nothing right with the album either. First, what’s up with the album art? It’s a close-up of a brown hashtag/pound key accompanied by PowerPoint-esque script. A Code? A Key? A Telephone? Twitter?

Next, the album tracks are obviously arranged to achieve maximum bang for the buck, and to showcase whatever is at least mildly memorable about the record. The biggest tracks of the album - “Home Is A Fire,” “Codes and Keys,” “Some Boys,” “Doors Unlocked and Opened,” and “You Are a Tourist” - are conspicuously numbered as #1-#5. After that, the whole thing truly dies. It appears Death Cab was aiming for subtlety and control, a-la the classic “Brothers on a Hotel Bed” with sleepers like “St. Peter’s Cathedral” and “Stay Young, Go Dancing,” but what they got are grandly awkward, cliche confessions. 

And finally, dear Bed Gibbard, where on earth did the poetry go? You once wrote that “love is watching someone die,” now you just seem to be plucking lines from Zooey Deschanel’s fan-mail and calling them “love songs.” Case in point, “Monday Morning”: 

She may be young but she only likes old things.

The modern music it ain’t to her taste 

She loves the natural light, captured in black and white.

It’s a song with the lyrical depth of a teacup. The song’s middle hook - monndaayyy morrrninnngg, monndaayyy morrrninnngg - bops along to a poppy synth that sounds more like Maroon 5 than Maroon 5. Overall, Codes and Keysis the unmemorable record du jour - and that’s too bad. Ban Gibbard is capable of songwriting of infinitely superior caliber, the kind he showcased on Plans, Transatlanticism, and Narrow Stairs. Codes and Keys listens like a first record, a dud, a test-run, far from sounding like the seventh attempt of one of the most successful indie bands of all time. 

Ever so sadly, -L