Narrow Stairs

Untitled

Narrow Stairs is the sixth studio album by rock band Death Cab for Cutie. It will be released May 13, 2008.

In October 2007, Chris Walla said that Death Cab for Cutie's new album is "in full swing; we're six songs in." He went on to say "thus far it's pretty weird and pretty spectacular; lots of blood. It's creepy and heavy... we've got a ten minute long Can jam, and had you suggested that possibility to me in 1998, I'd have eaten your puppy's brain with a spoon."[1]

Ben Gibbard, lead singer and guitarist, commented, "I just don't feel like we really have anything to prove of it other than to ourselves and to making a record we really enjoy."[2]

In a recent Billboard piece, the band is promising a "curve ball" and though it will have a number of slower songs, the band is promising some surprises: "It's really weird. It's really, really good, I think, but it's totally a curve ball, and I think it's gonna be a really polarizing record. But I'm really excited about it. It's really got some teeth. The landscape of the thing is way, way more lunar than the urban meadow sort of thing that has been happening for the last couple of records." "[It's also] louder and more dissonant and ... I think abrasive would be a good word to use. [We were influenced by] heavy, sludgy, slow metal [and] synth-punk band Brainiac."[3]

"I Will Possess Your Heart" was scheduled for radio play on March 24, 2008, however, on March 18, 2008, Rhode Island radio 95.5 WBRU was the first station in the United States to play the full eight minute song, and the band released the single on their MySpace page shortly thereafter.

Apple's iTunes music store opened pre-orders for the album on March 19, 2008.

On March 31, a fake version of the album was "leaked" on music blog charlatantric.[4] and spread to various torrent sites as an April Fool's prank with only "I Will Possess Your Heart" correct of all the Narrow Stairs songs named. The rest of the songs were by German indie band Velveteen, but due to the two bands having a very similar sound, some fans weren't sure at first if the files were in fact fake.

Critical reception

MTV's James Montgomery called it "unquestionably the best thing they've ever done".

Track listing

1. "Bixby Canyon Bridge"
2. "I Will Possess Your Heart" – 8:35
3. "No Sunlight"
4. "Cath..."
5. "Talking Bird"
6. "You Can Do Better than Me"
7. "Grapevine Fires"
8. "Your New Twin Size Bed"
9. "Long Division"
10. "Pity and Fear"
11. "The Ice Is Getting Thinner"