| Rating |
Summary |
|
| n/a by www.avclub.com |
Narrow Stairs finds Death Cab comfortable with all aspects of its musical personality--and on top of them all. |
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| n/a by www.boston.com |
This time out the musical gambles are bolder and the outcome proportionally more dramatic. |
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| n/a by www.spin.com |
While that may sound dangerously morose, Death Cab have become skilled with the light/dark juxtaposition. |
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| n/a by Rolling Stone |
Gibbard's indie-rock blues still plumb emotional depths with remarkable literary detail. |
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| n/a by www.tinymixtapes.com |
Narrow Stairs is the sound of a band falling in love with the concept of sound; as such, Gibbards stately lyricism largely takes a backseat--although his voice has never sounded more different and varied. |
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| n/a by Billboard |
The songs here hit with a full-on assault of crunching guitar riffs, distorted, cracked vocals and walls of disorienting feedback, while lyrically, frontman Ben Gibbard visits the moodier and darker corners of his mind. |
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| n/a by music.guardian.co.uk |
The quartet are more impressive, and moving, when they try less hard. |
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| n/a by www.lostatsea.net |
Ben Gibbard has shown growth which each successive release, and made the jump to hooky pop-songsmith with the Postal Service's (apparently) one-off collaboration, but Narrow Stairs feels stagnant, devoid of even the superficial pleasures present on Plans. |
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| n/a by www.nowtoronto.com |
Not the rock assault Gibbard thinks it is, but certainly more hard-hitting than ever. |
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| n/a by Pitchfork Media |
At times, the maturation feels forced; the more adventurous moments here are experimental only for such a high-profile group, and they don't play to Gibbard's sentimental, word-weighing strengths. |
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| n/a by www.prefixmag.com |
Narrow Stairs finds Gibbard more than willing to play to type, offering the same staid character sketches hes used since his first EP and songs that reiterate his point, that, like, love can be rough on you. |
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| n/a by www.slantmagazine.com |
Death Cab mostly abandons the full-sounding multi-tracked production they preferred during their rise to primetime soap stardom, and the effect is unflattering. |
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| n/a by Popmatters |
It may not be perfect, but it was certainly worth the wait. |
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| n/a by www.villagevoice.com |
It's their mediocre album. |
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| n/a by www.courant.com |
It's by no means a cheery album, but Narrow Stairs shows Death Cab for Cutie has overcome its major-label jitters and resumed making vital music. |
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| n/a by www.sputnikmusic.com |
Caught between the indie-pop that they so cleverly deviated and their new found ambitious sound, Death Cab For Cutie have lost themselves. |
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| n/a by www.ew.com |
A lesser band would shadow Gibbard's woe with their shoulders hunched. Instead, Death Cab's ebullience makes this a redemptive work about sadness. |
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| n/a by www.pastemagazine.com |
When Gibbard gets out of his own head, the confrontation between his tuneful optimism and the real world can yield an exhilarating dramatic tension. |
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| n/a by www.adequacy.net |
On its own, it has some great moments, and it is a very good pop/rock record. |
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| n/a by www.hotpress.com |
Inoffensively bland offering from US indie pop outfit. |
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