Kintsugi is a rather important record for Death Cab. After taking a decidedly risky stylistic detour with Codes & Keys (the bands' 2011 effort that, while interesting and enjoyable, disappointed most of their fanbase), and with the announced departure of producer and guitarist Chris Walla- the veteran indie darlings stand at a crossroads.
Rather than throw out convention and redesign their sound from the ground-up, Ben Gibbard & Co. instead decide to do a nostalgic glance-backwards, while retaining and more effectively incorporating the dreamy synth heavy atmospherics they explored the last time out. Kintsugi being, by definition, the art of fusing lacquered gold & silver into the process of repairing broken pottery (a practice in Japanese art that philosophically aims to celebrate the broken history of a piece rather than hide it), one could interpret the record as a way to celebrate what some critics have labelled 'shortcomings' in the classic Death Cab for Cutie sound. A smart and prescient move for album number 8.
In my opinion, DCFC has always been about celebrating shortcomings- Gibbard's lyrics at their best reflect the inner crevices of messy love and the lost hopes and dreams we all carry along with us. By honing in and focusing on the kind of personal and intimate storytelling the band made its name presenting, Death Cab have made a record of songs that ease their way into your head & heart, instead of stumble and stretch to find new ground. This tactic might seem safe and stilted to some more cynical and demanding listeners, but to me seems more like a realignment of priorities and purpose. In fact, what made Codes & Keys hard to completely enjoy was the way that it felt like the band was trying its best to put on a dress that didn't quite fit. There are definitely some aural holdovers from that album to be found here (a move that makes sense and actually reinforces why we should still care about Death Cab For Cutie in 2015), but these songs have an unlabored forward momentum that feels honest and true in a way the widescreen phantasms of Codes & Keys simply didn't.
Still, with all of that said, the album does fall short of being anything resembling a masterpiece. Maybe that's ok, though, for a band that has spent 2 decades chronicling everyday hardships and practically spearheading a genre explosion that they were, at least on a musical level, never really that much a part of. These guys have made at least 3 absolutely essential modern-day indie rock records, and have at all times endeavoured- if not completely succeeded- to push their sound into exciting new places with each new album. If their eighth record sounds like a mature group of guys facing down middle age with the calm assurance of basking in the familiar, it's actually pretty hard to fault them for it. Maybe fixing what seemed broken really is enough after all.
