Death Cab For Cutie has been one of the most reliable rock bands of the last twenty years and their new album, “Asphalt Meadows” keeps up a high degree of reinvention that has served them so well. The songs reflect the moodiness and weariness of the past couple of years better that any post pandemic releases yet.

The new album uses the tumultuous backdrop of the pandemic for inspiration. Lead singer Ben Gibbard describes one of the songs saying it’s “about the crippling, existential dread that goes hand in hand with living in a nervous city on a dying planet. And that the only way to be in the moment is to let it all go."

The buzzing guitars, emotional keyboards and layered vocals have always been a part of DCFC’s sound but on the new album they are approaching the recording in fascinating new ways that are as surprising as they are fresh.

It’s rare that a band this far into their career has a return-to-form like this one. “Asphalt Meadows” is like a band reborn staring unblinkingly into the apocalypse and finding a way to let it all go and carry on.

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