When a band releases a new video there is usually so much to say about the song because the video is just there for background entertainment. This time around, it seems as if a different approach was taken. Death Cab for Cutie have a new single called “Little Bribes” and for once, the video can be praised just as highly as the track.

The song is a catchy number and navigates into a different direction from what we’re familiar with when we listen to Death Cab. “Little Bribes” integrates an upbeat folk-tune vibe into the traditional style that you’ve grown to love when listening to Death Cab, then shoves it right in your face for 2 minutes and 45 seconds. It’s a great song that deserved a great video.

Ross Ching, a Death Cab for Cutie fan who graduated from San Diego State University’s film program, directed the video and posted it to the web (like most fans do) where it was quickly scooped up by Death Cab and deemed an official video for their track “Little Bribes.” Ching has an elaborate knack for time lapse and stop motion when filming his projects and utilized these impressive talents to create the video for “Little Bribes.”

If you want to grab this track, you can find it on The Open Door EP. Head over to the Death Cab for Cutie online store and grab your copy today.

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For more information on Death Cab for Cutie, visit myspace.com/deathcabforcutie.

I remember distinctly the first time I ever heard Death Cab for Cutie. It was senior year of high school and I was sitting on Map’s bedroom floor working on a project for our sociology class when “We Laugh Indoors” came on. I remember thinking that it sounded completely different from anything else I was listening to at the time– though now Minus the Bear is occasionally reminiscent of them– and I remember thinking that it felt like a moment, like a place, and thinking that it sounds like the sort of song that plays the moment you know that something in your life has just shifted irrevocably. I also have some rather vivid memories of a different scene when that song was playing and life was changing indeed. Anyway, I’ve always really loved that song, and even though I wouldn’t say that Death Cab is one of my favorite bands, I have a certain fondness for them, wrought in large part through boys I have loved that have loved them.

It’s one of those bands that goes through a stylistic evolution every few years and gains or loses fans along the way. I think it’s a natural progression (I don’t believe in the “selling out” argument for anyone) and for me, their new stuff just doesn’t catch me in the gut the way their old did. (I truly despise “Soul Meets Body,” but I really love three other songs on Plans so maybe that’s not a good example). Death Cab is easy on the ears. It varies from mellow to slightly trippy and it sounds like its been stripped down and reworked. It says more by what it doesn’t say than what it does.

Someone burned me a live copy of We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes a few years ago and I have just about worn the thing out. Something about the album live brings out so much more depth and emotion than any of their (albeit good) studio work. “Title Track” is by far my favorite song on the album (actually, I’m about 90% sure it’s my favorite Death Cab song, period) and in no small part because it is incredibly bare. Raw, even. Ben Gibbard sounds less in control of his usually emotionless voice and the lyrics on this song are just not to be believed. “Talking how the group had begun to splinter, and I can taste your lipstick on the filter.”

It’s romanticizes the unromantic. There’s no love in this song, but it’s got a life. It feels real, living and breathing. You know how when you hit bottom you can laugh at anything? This song feels just like that moment. When you’re so down-and-out that you simply don’t care, you just want to clutch at anything you can lay your hands on. It’s about the moment, the desperation, the beauty in running with it. Even if you regret it in the morning.

This is a song that I frequently put on at the end of the day. Most of the time, it inspires me to write something, though occasionally I’ll just lay, listen, and let my thoughts scatter. And every so often, when I’m feeling particularly restless, I will dance, and I will wait.

»Album Reviews For Release Date: 04.14.09
by Joshua Krage

I’m on vacation, so I feel like I should be getting paid double for even typing anything up this week. What, I AM getting paid double? Sweet! OK, what’s 200% of Zero? Anyways, here’s a list with some short info behind the notables. Rock on, rock in, rock over:

As I Lay Dying
Beck – proper, expanded edition of his old-school folk LP titled One Foot In the Grave. Lo-fi!
Russell Brand
Brutal Truth

Death Cab For Cutie, The Open Door EP – decent little 4 (+1)-track Open Door EP, all castoffs or leftovers from their Narrow Stairs sessions, and many topping that album’s content.

Dntel – expansive “early works” collection.
Easy Star All-Stars - the dub juggernaut (or “dubbernaut?”) takes on the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper” album. That’s psychedelic in a whole new way.
Mike Farris – live
Fastball
Fire On Fire
Josh Freese

Grand Duchy, Petits Fours – anything Frank Black (aka Black Francis of the Pixies aka Charles Thompson aka father of “alternative” punk rock) does is noteworthy, and this little plaything of a project with his wife, Violet Clark, turned out to be a rather meaty album.

Ida Maria, Fortress ‘Round My Heart – c-c-crazy, frenetic, stripped-down punk rock done right by this Norwegian firebrand and her Swedish comrades. She lists her main influences as MIA, Roy Orbison, and Fela Kuti, fer chrissakes! Lots of press for singing “I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked,” but there’s other good songs too.

John 5 - remix album. Crazy…
John Doe
The Juan MacLean
Medeski, Martin & Wood

Metric, Fantasies – wish I had time to listen to this, I really like Emily Haines and this band is pretty consistent.

Nick Oliveri
Papercuts
Prefuse 73

The Rakes, Klang – love this London 4-piece, a classic UK-type rock sound that’s really sarcastic and danceable.

Silversun Pickups, Swoon – long-awaited sophomore album from the band that picked up the Smashing Pumpkins’ grandeur where Billy Corgan dropped it many years back. That parallel persists, so if you liked their “Carnavas” album you’ll find not much has changed here, meaning the sound is still stellar but the writing is not incredibly original. Not really a step forward, but enjoyable enough

Jill Sobule
Soulive
The Who

OK, back to vacationing. Speaking of vacationing, you Coachella folks enjoy your sweltering desert this weekend, I’d love to join you but I just had my fill of people-packed, sweltering desert walking around the Las Vegas Strip. See you next week.

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