Sold Date: August 25, 2024
Start Date: August 6, 2024
Final Price: $26.50 (USD)
Seller Feedback: 2925
Buyer Feedback: 0

Death Cab For Cutie NARROW STAIRS Limited Edition CLEAR Red Blue Swirl Vinyl LP Record Album. New, sealed. No rips to shrink wrap, no bumped corners. See photos. In stock, ships same day!

Sealed records are not returnable once opened.  No exceptions.  All records are carefully packed & shipped in special LP shipping cartons.

After spending the better part of a decade in the musical minor leagues, Death Cab for Cutie went pro with 2005's “Plans”, a record whose optimism and bright, Technicolor sound gave the band enough leverage to enter the mainstream. "Soul Meets Body" became their biggest rock single to date, but it was Ben Gibbard's delicate love song, "I Will Follow You Into the Dark," that earned the quartet a Grammy nomination and legions of new fans. Narrow Stairs roughs up Plans' bright palette with something starker, more harrowing, and altogether darkened by Gibbard's blues. No longer crooning about love or his desire to embrace all of Manhattan, the frontman lives inside his own troubled head on these 11 tracks -- or at least the heads of the characters he conjures up with ease, like some music-minded novelist with a knack for pop melodies and witty observations. There's "Cath," an ill-married girl who "holds a smile like someone would hold a crying child," as well as the creepy stalker in "I Will Possess Your Heart," who simply demands that his intended lover give him the time of day. Elsewhere, Gibbard sings about a friend's recent heartbreak by referencing her bedroom furniture ("Your New Twin Sized Bed"), offering up his concern while the band conjures up a lazy summer's day beneath him, layering gauzy keyboards with chiming guitar riffs. This sort of contrast between music and text plays an occasional role on Narrow Stairs, with songs like "No Sunlight" and "Long Division" pairing somber lyrics with upbeat, happy orchestration. But the album largely paints itself as the darker, mysterious cousin to Plans -- raw rather than polished, heartbroken rather than optimistic, enigmatic rather than energetic. Gibbard strings his words together with an army of free-flowing "ands" and "buts", and the resulting lyrics mirror his characters' desperation. Narrow Stairs willingness to steer Death Cab into unfamiliar territory ("into the dark"), is by far its biggest strength. ~ Andrew Leahey

A1 Bixby Canyon Bridge

A2 I Will Possess Your Heart

A3 No Sunlight

A4 Cath ...

A5 Talking Bird

B6 You Can Do Better Than Me

B7 Grapevine Fires

B8 Your New Twin Sized Bed

B9 Long Division

B10 Pity And Fear

B11 The Ice Is Getting Thinner