Codes and Keys

As the record comes to a close, it's impossible not to note the true creativity exerted throughout the entirety of Codes and Keys.

If Codes and Keys started at track 7 and kept the momentum going, it could be a great record. Instead it's a good one with great moments from a band that's clearly getting better with age.

Past Death Cab albums have found frontman Ben Gibbard penning youthful lyrics about the wariness and mystery of love, but now, the singer -- who recently married actress/musician Zooey Deschanel -- seems to finally be at peace with his strange, wonderful self.

Perhaps Codes And Keys's seemingly illogical sequencing of songs makes sense if they wish to lure their audience into thinking it's as-you-were. But it's not: things are different and better. [July 2011, p. 110]

This album doesn't try to rejuvenate Death Cab for Cutie by reverting to the sound the band had in the late 1990s. Now, it's a band of grown-ups still eager to evolve.

Throw in the stunning power and clarity of Alan Moulder's mix and you have the sound of a band revitalised, re-inspired and highly evolved.

That's the type of music that the band knocks out of the park: music for lovers to do romantic things to. On Codes And Keys, those lovers are encouraged to be happy-an emotion that sometimes has evaded Death Cab.

As such it is an understated and subtlety magnificent pleasure.

There's an ease and comfort about the songs that suggests they fell into place naturally, rather than suffering endless alterations; and the band seem content to let them breathe and take on a life of their own, rather than freight them with unnecessary adornment.

Underneath slicker production and diminished guitar usage, are the same melodies and introspective, angsty songwriting, only this time the band may come off as occasionally happy.

This quietly experimental album ends up being Death Cab For Cutie's great leap forward--an achievement of pop formalism wrapped inside a beautiful cacophony. [Jun 2011, p.108]

Gibbard mostly dispenses with his trademark jitters, leaning into Death Cab's tuneful guitar-band thrum with a confidence that eventually sells Codes and Keys' moments of 
eager-beaver optimism.

Longtime Death Cab fans may chafe at the record's brighter moments, but it's a more rewarding experience than the band's previous stab at a "pop" record, 2005's Plans.

Death Cab for Cutie's seventh studio album, Codes and Keys, pulses with the sound of tires on pavement, life blurring past a bus window on the road.

It certainly lacks the ambition and scope of Transatlanticism, but given the group's recent personal and professional triumphs, it's encouraging to hear them produce a piece of work reflective of their situation.

Luckily, there's enough genuine melody at the core of these songs to warrant their arrangements.

By Ben Gibbard's own admission "a much less guitar-centric" record than usual, it is therefore, if only by default, the closest thing yet to a follow-up to Give Up by Gibbard's other concern, the Postal Service, although it's more about pretty pianos than effervescent synths.

Perhaps the charm of Codes and Keys stems from the clever recycling of tropes-both musical and thematic.

It's a fine album, but signposts a possible future rather than taking us there directly.

Here on Death Cab for Cutie's seventh record there's little guitar to speak of, resulting in a more docile affair, even by the band's already mellow standards.

One listen to its seventh album, Codes and Keys, reveals a band conscious as ever of the power of the studio. [May 2011, p. 77]

The positivity is hardly worry-free, and the arrangements, shaped by My Bloody Valentine mixologist Alan Moulder, add disorienting details (the dubby ghost vocals on "Doors Unlocked and Open") for those listening closely. But at core, these are resplendent songs, the sound of a sad-sack acquiescing that life might be pretty awesome after all.

The end result is an unfortunate fact that while Death Cab For Cutie seems as capable as ever at expressing themselves, they are running out of things to say. Or, at least, things worth hearing.

On his band's new album, Codes and Keys, Gibbard's picked up a bit of L.A.'s sun-scarred optimism and a droll domestic satisfaction that's alternately smug and insightful.

Until Gibbard can harness this newfound happiness with the kind of lyrical flair his fans are used to, Death Cab remain in danger of being, well, just another indie band.

Unfortunately, not everything works quite as well [as the opening and final tracks]. [21 May 2011, p.51]

Despite an abundance of textures Codes and Keys seems somehow sparse, empty calories around a hollow centre.

Thanks in no small part to Death Cab, there's now a permanent niche for indie pop that's smart, sad, and refined, and Codes and Keys fills it nicely.

That being said, though, while Codes and Keys is a pleasing listen, it ultimately does lack the depth to make it really memorable, and some of the sacrifices made to create its poppy aesthetic are terribly unfortunate.

Pleasant songwriting propped by great production: you could level the same charge at a lot of stuff in the charts, and, in fairness, material from Codes and Keys wouldn't sound out of place if it cropped up next to Noah and the Whale on the radio.

Keys and Codes, which inverts the title of Death Cab's last record, feels slapped together, which is disappointing when you consider the array of talent present.

Death Cab still sound like Death Cab, but Codes and Keys is undoubtedly the least pop record they've made since breaking through to the mainstream with their last indie-situated effort, 2003's Transatlanticism.

Despite the occasional flashes of brilliance, Codes and Keys often feels like a half assed attempt at innovation.

Codes and Keys is littered with PDA for Gibbard's new celebrity wife Zooey Deschanel, but this especially garish monument to his muse would have been better placed on one of her She & Him album-wafers.