To date, Death Cab for Cutie's biggest hit, by a wide margin, is "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" from their 2005 album Plans. It is, like many of Ben Gibbard's songs, a little bit cloying, a little bit precious, but also catchy as all get out. Though not exactly Shakespeare, some of the lines are arresting. Consider the following: "If heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied, / illuminate the 'No's' on their vacancy signs, / if there's no one beside you as your soul embarks / then I will follow you into the dark." It's a nice image and it makes for a palatable chorus. Based on nothing else other than this song particle and Gibbard's collaboration on The Postal Service, I expected Transatlanticism to yield some decent lyrics and some good, melodic ear candy (my ear has a serious sweet tooth). Well, speaking of Shakespeare, are you familiar with the "infinite monkey theorem" as it relates to statistics? If not, here's the gist: if an infinite number of monkeys were able to type on an infinite number of typewriters given a long enough timeline, probability suggests that one of the monkeys at some point will eventually produce Hamlet. To put it in layman's terms, the sun don't shine on the same dog's ass everyday, but sometimes things line up just right. This is what popped in my head after wasting my time on this wildly overrated album. Just because Gibbard & Co. have gotten lucky once or twice doesn't make them good musicians. Turns out that what we have here is a whole lotta monkey typing. In addition to the music, which consists of one hookless, mid-tempo ode to boredom after another, the lyrics are the worst kind of hackneyed and overwrought nonsense. There's a lot of first person/present tense narration ("I roll the window down and begin to breathe in"), stupid metaphors ("your brain is the dam and I am the fish who can't reach the core"), trite imagery ("all I see are dark gray clouds"), repetition of lines that don't warrant a first mention ("I need you so much closer"...x12!), and - worst of all - meta-commentary on how the concept for the song came about ("and that's how this idea was drilled into my head"). As the album wore on, I thought things were looking up, but I was mistaken again. The nearly 8-minute title track starts off with a promising chord progression and begins to build, but ultimately goes nowhere slowly. "Passenger Seat" likewise sparks an interest before thoroughly disappointing. Gibbard sings (in the first person present tense - surprise, surprise), "Then looking upwards, I strain my eyes and try / to tell the difference between shooting stars and satellites." It's not even the best song I can think of wherein the protagonist mistakes satellites for shooting stars. That would be "A New England" by Billy Bragg. Nor is it the best song about being in the passenger seat. That might be a tie between Wilco's "Passenger Side" and Iggy Pop's "The Passenger." If I end up reviewing many more albums like this over the course of the year, I may be hiring some monkeys to do some typing for me. Grade: D+
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