When Ben Gibbard was placing the ending touches on Demise Cab For Cutie‘s tenth album, Asphalt Meadows, he had a sense that it will appease longtime followers.
And he was right.
“As we began enjoying it for buddies and other people near us, we began to get that response that was not simply individuals being supportive, however individuals being genuinely effusive,” recollects Gibbard, talking on Zoom from his Seattle dwelling, with a peppy demeanor early within the morning.
In Asphalt Meadows, there are parts of the band’s early work, sonically nodding to Slim Stairs, The Picture Album, and even Transatlanticism, whereas additionally feeling recent — thrashier and livelier than ever earlier than — with a few of Gibbard’s sturdiest songwriting since their hit albums.
A 12 months after 2018’s Thank You for At the moment, Gibbard began writing a few of these songs in his dwelling studio. When the pandemic arrived, Gibbard saved busy together with his “Stay From Residence” internet efficiency sequence — however as he continued to work on the album, he realized that he was creatively stifled.
To resolve that downside, he got here up with an unconventional writing train: Chosen in random order, every of the band’s 5 members can be given 24 hours to work on and end a track. The subsequent day, a unique band member would add one thing to it. Anybody may modify their bandmate’s addition as a lot as attainable whereas including their very own. By Friday, there can be a closing track.
“It was actually thrilling,” says co-founding member and bassist Nick Harmer over the telephone from Seattle. “We’d all wait eagerly for Friday as a result of we had no concept how the track was going to develop on the finish of the week. Not the whole lot by Friday was a slam dunk. There have been numerous occasions after we bought to writing, we’re like, ‘Okay, nicely, that’s not going to see the sunshine of day,’ however it was nonetheless a extremely good way for us to attach with one another as a band [while not being in] the identical bodily area. It saved my spirits up in a number of methods.”
Gibbard notes that, between this writing train and the fabric he wrote on his personal, there ended up being “about 90 songs.” However most of Asphalt Meadows got here from the collaborative course of between band members.
The album was narrowed all the way down to 11 tracks, with Gibbard and the remainder of Demise Cab being rigorously selective with what materials would find yourself on the LP. “I’d fairly launch much less music, and have or not it’s…If I might be so daring, important to the catalog, than for me to only be drowning individuals in music,” Gibbard says. “I really feel at this level, definitely 25 years in, we’ve made so many data, and we’ve made some data that, fortunately for us, have been crucial to individuals. The very last thing I need to do is simply to place music out and water the discography down.”
Demise Cab joined the ranks of indie rock veterans who made albums below COVID lockdown, like Interpol and Silversun Pickups, with songs that seize the anxiousness, concern, and craving that 2020 introduced. However in Demise Cab’s case, the phrases really feel timeless.
“I used to be very acutely aware [while] writing lyrics for this report that, by the point this report was going to return out, hopefully we had been going to be by means of the worst of the pandemic,” says Gibbard. “Nobody was going to need to hear a complete album of songs about being locked in our homes, consuming takeout, watching Netflix, proper? Lyrically, I simply was making an attempt to concentrate on ruminating on the issues which have all the time fascinated me. That’s the connection and lack of connection between individuals, and searching each ahead and backwards on the identical time, generally in the identical track.”
Demise Cab’s two earlier albums, 2018’s Thank You for At the moment and 2015’s Kintsugi, are amongst the band’s softest, so to comply with them, Gibbard needed to forego mid-tempo ballads and inject a bolt of power into the brand new work. Making yet one more mild, somber report would’ve been “so fucking predictable and boring,” says Gibbard. The aim for Asphalt Meadows, he provides, was to strive new issues whereas sustaining a way of familiarity.
Harmer says that, even when followers discover moments that resemble the early materials, the band didn’t deliberately sit down to put in writing a report that feels like “basic Demise Cab.” He explains, “I feel the DNA of the band is fairly nicely established. I feel that the sound of the band and the music that type of comes out of us after we all get collectively in a room or after we’re type of left to our personal gadgets, that’s simply what comes out.”
For Asphalt Meadows, the band teamed up with Grammy-winning producer John Congleton, who’s produced lots of their favourite data from the brand new indie rock technology, like Alvvays (whom Gibbard has coated earlier than) and Angel Olsen.
That connection got here at a serendipitous time. When plans of working with a unique producer fell by means of, keyboardist Zac Rae recommended to Gibbard that he ought to get in contact with Congleton, who occurred to be on the town producing Tegan and Sara’s upcoming album. The chemistry was rapid.
“We had espresso, and I used to be like, ‘I fucking love this dude,’” recollects Gibbard. “I can actually say, with all due respect to everyone we’ve made data with, I really feel like this was the primary report we made in a very long time the place I felt utterly in sync with the particular person within the producer chair.”
Getting a brand new Demise Cab album, and considered one of their greatest, is a welcome shock for followers — however it’s not the report many thought Gibbard was engaged on in 2020. A 12 months after Gibbard carried out “Nothing Higher” with Jenny Lewis on tour and performed The Postal Service songs throughout his “Stay From Residence” classes, The Postal Service teased one thing approaching Oct. 7, 2020. The tweet acquired over 18,000 likes, with followers frenzied over the potential of a second Postal Service report. As an alternative, what arrived was a star-studded jokey video that includes lots of Gibbard’s buddies, together with Tim Robinson (whom Gibbard is an enormous fan of), Anne Hathaway, “Bizarre Al” Yankovic, Vanessa Bayer, and Slash, the place the celebrities “auditioned” to hitch The Postal Service. The video was a “Make Your Vote Rely” PSA forward of the 2020 presidential election.
Whereas many followers felt misled, Gibbard was shocked that followers truly thought his long-dormant aspect undertaking would return. “I’ll argue that there was nothing that we put out on the planet as a teaser to that video, that on its floor gave any indication that there was a brand new Postal Service report,” he asserts. “There’s not a brand new report; there’s not going to be a brand new report.” However he does give a superb motive why: “Give Up is that this little snowflake of an album — and there’ll by no means be one other one prefer it, no less than not by us.”
Gibbard’s choice to not comply with up Give Up, realizing the indie pop basic won’t ever be matched, underscores his present inventive mindset: He’s solely going to launch music he feels strongly about, Asphalt Meadows included. “Our high quality management, I want to suppose, is increased now than it’s ever been,” he says. “As a result of there’s no motive to place out data except now we have one thing to say.”
