Death Cab For Cutie - No Room In Frame review • DIY Magazine

There was always going to be a slight weight of expectation on Ben Gibbard to address his failed marriage on the new Death Cab for Cutie record - especially given that he dedicated plenty of ‘Codes and Keys’ to just how well it was going. He gets it over with nice and early on ‘Kintsugi’. The album’s opening hat-trick - ‘No Room in Frame’, ‘Black Sun’ and ‘The Ghosts of Beverly Drive’ - all deal with his ill-fated time living in Los Angeles, but it’s this track that confronts his divorce from Zooey Deschanel most specifically; “was I in your way / when the cameras turned to face you?”

Death Cab demonstrated both sonic and thematic maturity on the criminally-underrated ‘Codes..’ and they’ve carried it into this song with real verve; the lyrics ring with sad resignation, rather than anger or despair, and Chris Walla’s nuanced approach to the guitar continues, too - the track feels sparse, minimalist, with a signature Walla arpeggio in the middle-eight marking the first time he really veers away from deliberate restraint. ‘No Room in Frame’ isn’t wholly representative of the sound of ‘Kintsugi’ - it’s hugely varied - but it does speak to the way that Death Cab have been making their music since ‘Narrow Stairs’: precision is the name of the game.

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Tags: Reviews, Death Cab for Cutie, Listen