Rating:

DCfC are back with their fifth full-length, and their first for major label Atlantic. The larger budget doesn’t really seem to have had any effect on the Death Cab’s sound, but I think it’s impossible to hear this album without looking at it from a slightly different angle than before. The album winds its way from one ballad to the next, with brief stopovers at moderately up-tempo numbers to help break things up a bit, while Gibbard’s wispy, poetic lyrics are as sensitive and wussy as ever, sometimes too much so. Plans is a sad-sounding album, and it’s this sense of resignation that either makes or breaks the album, depending on one’s point of view. It’s a careful but not calculated album, accessible but hardly immediate. Ultimately, Plans isn’t really going to change anybody’s mind about Death Cab For Cutie, because it’s just another DCfC album.

Buy album

– Kevin

This 3-beetsreview was posted on September 23rd, 2005. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.