Death Cab for Cutie — The Open Door EP

I like Death Cab. In fact, I like them a lot. My junior year of college I went to see them with my brother at the Orpheum in Memphis. The Orpheum is a great venue for almost any band, and that night we saw Ok Go open Death Cab finish out the evening. Death Cab opened with “Marching Bands of Manhattan” and it only got better from there. Tonight, my brother will see them for a second time at the Orpheum along with Ra Ra Riot and Cold War Kids. It should be excellent. 

Last week, Death Cab released their Open Door EP containing four songs that didn’t make it to Narrow Stairs and a demo of “Talking Bird”, which did make it on the album. I like EP’s… in fact, I like them just as much (if not more) than Death Cab itself. The EP is such a great sampler of how good a band can actually be without showering everything they have all at once. The Open Door EP is a wonderful example of a well produced EP. There’s no stand alone track and once you get done enjoying one song, they hit you with another that’s just as good. 

Most of the itunes comments about this EP are saying this is more traditional Death Cab and not their sound that came with Narrow Stairs. I really enjoyed Narrow Stairs because it’s authentic. Very few people can put a song together like Ben Gibbard and Narrow Stairs is a very solid example of that. I also like to see bands grow and explore different sounds and styles… I don’t really think that Death Cab explored many new things with Narrow Stairs other than a bit more crunch to their guitars and a little more pep to some of their tempos. The Open Door does have more pep than most of their stuff before. Each song is solid and shows Ben Gibbard at his best. I wish that I could put the whole EP on here because picking one song is tough to do. But, alas, no choice will be bad. Here is the opener, “Little Bribes”. 

Why I sing…