0 Stars
By their seventh studio album, many bands are running out of creative steam and original ideas. But in the case of Death Cab for Cutie, nothing could be further from the truth. Codes and Keys is singular in the quartet’s catalog when it comes to sonic exploration and lyrical ambition. If anything, the band has never sounded more excited to experiment with textures, words, sounds and even the process of recording itself.
Death Cab created Codes and Keys in studios up and down the West Coast, in short bursts over a period of seven months. These studios included Sound City in Van Nuys, California (where the band recorded The Twilight Saga: New Moon single “Meet Me on the Equinox”), The Warehouse in Vancouver, drummer Jason McGerr’s own Two Sticks Audio and Tiny Telephone in San Francisco. In between these ten-day or two-week recording sessions, they would put the songs aside and let them “gestate,” bassist Nick Harmer says.
While Death Cab for Cutie has always produced their best work by recording in a piecemeal fashion like this, Harmer says that the process of making Codes and Keys was “most fragmented that we’ve done in terms of time-on-time-off.” But McGerr found a real benefi... More Biography
Death Cab created Codes and Keys in studios up and down the West Coast, in short bursts over a period of seven months. These studios included Sound City in Van Nuys, California (where the band recorded The Twilight Saga: New Moon single “Meet Me on the Equinox”), The Warehouse in Vancouver, drummer Jason McGerr’s own Two Sticks Audio and Tiny Telephone in San Francisco. In between these ten-day or two-week recording sessions, they would put the songs aside and let them “gestate,” bassist Nick Harmer says.
While Death Cab for Cutie has always produced their best work by recording in a piecemeal fashion like this, Harmer says that the process of making Codes and Keys was “most fragmented that we’ve done in terms of time-on-time-off.” But McGerr found a real benefi... More Biography
