Death Cab’s Narrow Stairs Will Possess Your Heart

The much anticipated new Death Cab For Cutie CD Narrow Stairs was released yesterday. My wife grabbed a copy from Target for only $9.98. My first reaction is that this is a great overall album. After a couple more listens, I’m beginning to think this is an awesome album. And with each listen, it seems to get better and better. I’m resisting the temptation to start figuring out how to play each song. There’s something mysterious and enjoyable about listening to a new song and just taking in the melodies, the chords, and the riffs, and not being so obsessed with how it’s played. I’m sometimes let down to discover that a song I always thought sounded so cool, so unique, was actually just the same three chords found in every other song. Besides, there isn’t just one all-guitar/piano song that really stands out as a great figure-out-and-play-along song, such as Follow You Into the Dark from Plans or Passenger Seat. The guitar is bit more distorted and bit more raw. And aside from a few notes in I Will Possess Your Heart, I haven’t heard much piano in there either.

But I won’t attempt to write an actual review, I never seem to be able to write how music sounds to me into plain old words. But so far I really enjoy it, and the more I listen to it, the more it grows on me. I’m looking forward to spending some time listening to it, and maybe I will get around to figuring out a song or two. We were up watching The Late Show and just before turning it off to go to bed, Letterman announces that the musical guest would be DCFC. So I recorded it and cut an .mp3 of it that you can download here. My dumb DVR cut off the last 30 seconds, but I got most of the whole song. I figure someone else will put the whole thing up on YouTube, but until then, you can at least throw this shorter, live version on your iPod.

I Will Possess Your Heart – The Late Show with David Letterman (mp3, 3.8mb)