A new label, a larger
crowd (thanks to their repeated appearances on The OC). These
moves were perfectly aligned to take the little band that could into
the rock stratosphere. Plans is warm and polished, the kind of album expected from a band obsessed with the sound of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. Chris Walla does an amazing job bringing the group's sound in a different direction
than before without compromising many of the things that made the
group sound great to begin with. Thematically, Plans is the Death Cab
for Cutie suitable for graduate students, world-weary and wiser from
their experiences, realizing they can no longer be love-starved
20-somethings without a clue yet hopelessly cursed to face the same
issues. Gibbard's wispy, poetic lyrics still remain an artery from
which the rest of the band beats and are some of his finest ever, but
this time around the band aligns itself more with a series of emotional
murmurs rather than a heart attack. 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. And it's this sense of resignation that
either makes or breaks the album, depending on which Death Cab for Cutie
is your favorite: the melancholic, hopeless romantic or the one who
wears its heart on its sleeve with unbridled energy and passion.Plans is both a destination and a transitional journey
for the group, one that sees the fulfillment of years of toiling away to
develop their ideas and sound. .