The latest album by Death Cab For Cutie has had mixed reviews, yet I think it contains some of the bands strongest songs since their early-noughties double-whammy of The Photo Album & Transatlanticism. Songs like Your Hurricane...
Cause every time there's a knock on my door
I fall to my hands and knees on the floor
'Cause when your wreckage washes up on my shore
You're not like before
And you try to explain who's at fault for your mistakes
But I won't be the debris in your hurricane"
...and Gold Rush are delicate and affecting. They caught me on first listen and continue to resonate a few weeks down the line.
But it's the final track, 60 & Punk, which blew me away. The tale of a fading rock star who may have been happier before he ever found fame, you find yourself wondering if Ben Gibbard wrote it with any particular star in mind... and the internet is full of speculation about that (favourites include Peter Buck and Paul Westerberg). Whatever, it's another great Mid-Life Crisis Song to add to my ever growing list...
The curtain falls to applause and the band plays you off, the band plays you off
He's a superhero growing bored with no one to save anymore...
There's nothing elegant in being a drunk
It's nothing righteous being sixty and a punk
But when you're looking in the mirror do you see
That kid that you used to be?
Broke and working in a record store
Daydreaming about the upcoming tour
Were you happier when you poor?
A band I only recently "discovered" More exploration required
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