Album Review: Death Cab For Cutie - Kintsugi

“Kintsugi” references a Japanese art form celebrating the broken or worn qualities of a piece.

So this too is the sound of a group fractured, but presented with a Brechtian lack of apology. Ben Gibbard sounds generally breezier than ever in Death Cab For Cutie’s latest album, despite whatever tribulations led to his divorce and co-founder Chris Walla’s departure from the group. It’s all bubbling under the surface though. While you’re bopping and bouncing to the disco élan of Good Help (Is So Hard To Find), or drinking in the morning dew of Hold No Guns, Gibbard’s slipping in lines like “Friends, they always splinter” or spitting “Only fools give it away”, while funky guitars screech to a car-crash halt in the background.

Much of Kintsugi languishes in beanbags surrounded by the vibes of the last War On Drugs album and the open-eyed wonder of The Waterboys. No Room In Frame is a colourful opener, perfectly primed for radio-play although it finishes a nicely elongated outro too soon. It’s lovely to hear him swaddled once more in Dntel like radiowaves but Gibbard seems too eager to shuffle back to the comforting surrounds of downtempo.