Codes and Keys

by Death Cab for Cutie

Overview

Props to Zooey Deschanel for finally cheering Ben Gibbard up. On Narrow Stairs, the Death Cab frontman sang songs like "You Could Do Better Than Me" and "Pity and Fear," filling the album with the sort of articulate, hyper-literate gloominess you might expect from a depressed poetry major. Codes and Keys, released three years after Narrow Stairs and two years after his marriage to Deschanel, paints a brighter picture. Gone are the breakup ballads, the odes to lost love, the down-in-the-dumps sentiment that filled most of Death Cab's earlier work. Instead, the album offers up a handful of odes to the sunny side of life. Gibbard alludes to his wife often, referencing her retro charm on "Morning Morning" ("She may be young but she only likes old things/And modern music, it ain't to her tastes") and laying out a plan for the rest of their married life with "Doors Unlocked and Open" ("We'll live in slow motion and be free/with doors unlocked and open"). Beneath his vocals, more changes are taking place: a move away from guitar-based song arrangements, a stronger emphasis on keyboards, a willingness to explore the electro-acoustic link between Death Cab and the Postal Service, Gibbard's most famous side-project. Codes and Keys still sounds like a Death Cab album, but the guys explore the benefits of the recording studio more than ever before, boosting Jason McGerr's drums with bits of programmed percussion and scaling back their guitar riffs to sparse, articulate clumps of notes that ring out into the ether. There's a new-found emphasis on open space, on electronics, on Kid A-inspired webs of feedback and distortion that are draped behind the songs like ambient backdrops. It's not all machines and Eno-esque production -- a simple barroom piano opens up the title track, and "Stay Young, Go Dancing" (whose title would've seemed far out of place on any other Death Cab record) begins with an acoustic guitar -- but Codes and Keys certainly emphasizes the "studio" in "studio album," focusing as much on the music's presentation as its content. Luckily, there's enough genuine melody at the core of these songs to warrant their arrangements. ~ Andrew Leahey

Product Details

Release Date:	04/28/2023
Label:	Barsuk
UPC:	0655173311615
Rank:	33712

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Death Cab for Cutie   Primary Artist
Jory Fankuchen   Strings
Minna Choi   Conductor
Michelle Kwon   Strings
Magik Magik Orchestra   Strings
Liana Berube   Strings
Philip Brezina   Strings

Technical Credits

Jason McGerr   Group Member
Ben Gibbard   Composer,Group Member
John Vanderslice   Assistant
Jay Pellicci   Assistant
Pierre de Reeder   Assistant
Nick Harmer   Photography,Group Member
Johnny Mendoza   Assistant
Jackson Long   Assistant
Roger Seibel   Mastering
Cathy Ferrante   Assistant
Kendra Lynn   Assistant
Joe Goldberg   Assistant
Chris Walla   Mixing,Composer,Producer,Recording,Group Member
Stuart Hallerman   Assistant
Alan Moulder   Mixing
David Covell   Assistant
Trey Many   Booking
Dana Childs   Logistics
Beau Sorenson   Mixing,Engineer,Recording
Adam Katz   Logistics
Catherine Marks   Assistant,Mixing Engineer
Jordan Kurland   Management
Adam Greenholtz   Assistant
Sam Riback   A&R
Minna Choi   Arranger
Roger Siebel   Mastering
Chris Myhill   Booking
Sean Oakley   Assistant
John Catlin   Assistant,Mixing Engineer
Benoit & Sergio   Remixing
Sally Pickett   Assistant
Storey Elementary   Design,Photography
Mark Richards   Assistant
Ryan Enockson   Assistant
Stephen Hogan   Assistant
Nicholas Harmer   Group Member