after many listens, i am disappointed. it's a good record, but it ends at that. i was hoping for something truely spectacular; although it does have its moments.

I think that Narrow Stairs is a huge improvement over Plans. Not that Plans was bad, it just was too polished and slow. Bixby, Cath, Grapevine Fires, and Long Division alone make Narrow Stairs great.

Narrow Stairs is different... I can't say it's better than anything thing else, but it good... I personally love Plans, but I think that Grapevine Fires is one of the best DCFC songs I have ever heard.

If I dont think about it too much its a great album. Try this; Put Transatlanticism on when you are going to bed and then Narrow Stairs on a different night. Entirely different results.

Regards Etc.

Narrow Stairs is musically defenitely an improvement. At first, I didn't got the DCfC feel I was used, but I still liked it. I've listened to the album a lot lately and it's growing on me. I genuinely love it. There are a couple of songs that have that special DCfC sound like cath and twin bed. But there are also some experimental songs like pity and fear. And that's what makes it an improvement. Who wants an album that sounds the same as its predecessor.

quote:

Originally posted by Levi!:
Narrow Stairs is musically definitely an improvement. At first, I didn't got the DCfC feel I was used, but I still liked it. I've listened to the album a lot lately and it's growing on me. I genuinely love it. There are a couple of songs that have that special DCfC sound like cath and twin bed. But there are also some experimental songs like pity and fear. And that's what makes it an improvement. Who wants an album that sounds the same as its predecessor.

Sorry mate but you are talking utter bollocks.

The definite lack of sophistication and subtlety on this album is shocking. Theres no realization of new brilliance here. Improvemnet ? Oh dear. I can put on any of the Barsuks and love them. I just tune out narrow stairs. Not having it. just went the gig to try to convince myself that narrow stairs would be really good live. It wasnt, I was in good company though most of us stood trying to convince ourselves that the album was deeper than we knew. Hardly.

The emperor wears no clothes

quote:

Originally posted by Chopper:

quote:

Originally posted by Levi!:
Narrow Stairs is musically definitely an improvement. At first, I didn't got the DCfC feel I was used, but I still liked it. I've listened to the album a lot lately and it's growing on me. I genuinely love it. There are a couple of songs that have that special DCfC sound like cath and twin bed. But there are also some experimental songs like pity and fear. And that's what makes it an improvement. Who wants an album that sounds the same as its predecessor.

Sorry mate but you are talking utter bollocks.

The definite lack of sophistication and subtlety on this album is shocking. Theres no realization of new brilliance here. Improvemnet ? Oh dear. I can put on any of the Barsuks and love them. I just tune out narrow stairs. Not having it. just went the gig to try to convince myself that narrow stairs would be really good live. It wasnt, I was in good company though most of us stood trying to convince ourselves that the album was deeper than we knew. Hardly.

The emperor wears no clothes

Well, that's just my humble opinion. And you've got yours. So yours is bollocks too. I'm going to see 'em in two weeks time. I'll find out then.

^ Maybe, but the argument that 'Pity and Fear' is an improvement for the band just because they experiment is where the real bollocks lies. It's experimental yes, but sometimes experiments fail and that exotic vibe just didn't work for them. Even though it's an experiment. That's like being drained for ideas and adding bagpipes and clarinet solos to a song and claiming that it will automatically be an improvement for your indie rock band. Fact is that 'Pity and Fear' is probably the weakest track on the album (maybe that's why they have yet to debut it live), because it's the most un-death cab'ish. It's not an improvement on their sound, it's an entirely other sound. It doesn't suit them imo, and it to me it's one of the things that makes Stairs an incoherent album.

Well that's indeed a fair point. But unlike you guys, I don't "hate" the song. I kind of like it. I have to agree on the fact that Pity and Fear is the most non-DCfC song on the album. But again, the fact that a band tries to expand their music with such stuff is a good thing imo. After that comes the question whether a song is good or not. And that differs per person.

I'm pretty disappointed with it.

There are a couple "ok" songs on the album. But for the most part they are lacking the musical, lyrical, and melodic qualities that most DCFC songs embody.

On most of the songs it seems as if Ben is just dialing it in. The melodies don't seem to fit and the sincerity that used to carry through on any song he sang is mostly gone(listen to his cover of the Avril Lavigne song "Complicated" and you'll see what I mean, he some how makes that song kinda OK).

The songs that do maybe have a chance (Bixby is the key example) have really "forced" music that distracts from the melody.

I've only listened to the album a couple of times, but I can already tell that it won't surpass Plans or Trans or most of the songs on Airplanes as far as composition and depth (both lyrically and musically).

I can really relate to the people who talked about listening to the other albums "for the first time" and what a powerful experience it was. I've been there. When I first got Trans I was captivated and when I first got Plans I was elated and when I went back and listened to other releases I was relieved to find gems even in their early days.

But my first listen through Stairs was just meh. I was searching for any hint of previous songwriting skill, and it was there, but it was not all there.

Maybe Walla's solo album took some of the good material?

Who knows.

I'm not writing them off by any means. I think Ben is one of the finest singer/songwriters of our time. You can't write off some one like that.

But an album that is as lackluster as this one is, at this point in their career ... well ... it doesn't bode well.

All the best to the guys, I'll be skipping this tour.

- sean

quote:

Originally posted by System:
[asshole]

I hate it when people say "this song is not Death Cab." Well guess what, it is. See the artist name next to the song? Excuse me for not wanting the same CD to be released every three years.

[/asshole]

I can't stand when people say that, I fell in love with the band for their sound and I don't want the band to pull away from what they are.
Honestly, Narrow Stairs falls in the category as all their older stuff because it really isn't a drastic change.
It's deff not their best album, no doubt about that one but its nothing to drastic to take note of.

I do really like Narrow Stairs, but ya know, I know get the urge to turn it on. I haven't really listened to music that much lately, like I used to, though... So it may not be the quality of the album but rather the current state of my life that is keeping me from listening to it.

It's my favorite album.

I get the urge to listen to this album every now and then... despite the fact that I didn't like it very much the first 100 times I'd listened to it. Conversely, the single: I Will Possess Your Heart left a lackluster feeling when I first heard it, but has since grown on me in the context of the album. Of course, the context that I'm talking about is the first two songs.

I always seem to quit listening after those two. The first song ironically sends me off searching for something that isn't really there... and IWPYH is a glimmer of hope that just shows the potential of what the rest of the album could have and should have been. Talking Bird, as simple as it is, and The Ice Is Getting Thinner, as simple as it is, are the only two other songs that lend to the notion that there was trying to be some kind of continuity within the album as a whole. The amount of filler, however, that has to be listened to in order to reach those tracks has proven to be unbarable.

In short, I don't really like this album at all. It has songs that I think are good and stand on their own (long division comes to mind, even though the lyircs are shotty), but the album doesn't flow enough to make it worth listening to. I feel like greatest hits albums have more continuity than this one does.

Maybe it's the three different studios that it was recorded in that gave this album such different feels. The only thing that seems to permiate the entire album are the horrendously repetative and cheap vocal rhyhtms and melodies.

I like it, but it isn't that great to me. I think my list goes...

Facts/Transatlanticism
Photo Album
Narrow Stairs
Plans
Airplanes