Death Cab keeps moving

"No matter what you do, there are always going to be people who say, `Their older stuff was better,' " Gibbard says. "I understand that, too. Because I think when you find a record that you really connect with, whether it's the band's first record or their fifth, that's always going to be their best record in your head."

Gibbard, whose Bellingham, Wash., band plays two sold-out shows tonight and tomorrow at the Middle East Downstairs, says he feels lucky just knowing that listeners have connected with his outfit's previous efforts at all. So he's not about to start questioning their response to one disc or another.

Gibbard's proud of "Transatlanticism," though. He likes knowing that the disc is being tagged as the band's best and most accessible. He likes knowing that a year that began with tossed-together side project the Postal Service's garnering more notice and commercial success than DCFC appears to be ending with a breakthrough for his primary band. (The Postal Service's CD, "Get Up," produced two radio hits, "Such Great Heights" and "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight.") And the songwriter likes hearing that "Transatlanticism" reveals that he and Death Cab are maturing.

"That word can have multiple connotations for me and for us," Gibbard says. "If it means we're changing as a band, I like it. I don't want to be the same band we were two years ago. I need to keep moving forward."

James Mercer, indie-pop songwriter of the Shins, says Gibbard has it exactly right. There's no point, he notes, in trying to make a new record sound like an old one just to please fans.

"You try to make improvements in your songwriting, and you hope your fans listen to it and like it," Mercer says. "I don't know what else you would do."

If the goal is to improve one's songwriting, Gibbard is certainly on the right track. Recognized as an expert creator of irresistible pop melodies from the time DCFC emerged nationally four years ago, Gibbard has grown steadily as a lyricist. "Transatlanticism" makes it clear that Gibbard should no longer be considered the emo songwriter with the greatest potential but simply the finest songwriter to come from the pathos-soaked genre.

The songs on "Transatlanticism" have a confidence in both lyrics and structure that has not been as evident in Death Cab's previous releases. The songs here are allowed to develop slowly. There's no rush to a hook, no fear of atmospherics. And the band's embrace of subtlety pays off in manners both understated (a mimicked mourning dove's call provides a telling link between the wistful opener, "The New Year," and the slightly guilty love ballad "Lightness") and straightforward (a piano riff played over at length in the title track underscores the hopelessness in Gibbard's repeated call "I need you so much closer").

Gibbard, meanwhile, seems to have mastered what he's always done best as a lyricist -- telling stories, sad and sweet, that expand outward from observations set in very real, specific moments.

"There's a tear in the fabric of your favorite dress, and I'm sneaking glances," Gibbard sings in the opening line from "Lightness." "I'm looking for patterns in static. They start to make sense the longer I'm at it." And that moment keeps Gibbard grounded even as he moves on to offer larger statements about romantic resignation -- "Instincts are misleading. You shouldn't think what you're feeling."

"Transatlanticism" is the sound of a band moving forward secure in the knowledge that even while there will be some longtime fans who'll say "They were better when . . ." there will be others happy to move forward with them, and still more who will join them only now.

Whatever fans -- old or new -- make of "Transatlanticism," Gibbard says what matters to him is that he likes it. And even that has lost some meaning.

"I go through a phase with all of our records when they get done where I sort of sit back and revel in it," Gibbard says. "But this record has been done for months, so I'm not in that phase any more. I'm looking forward to what's next."

Death Cab For Cutie plays two sold-out shows tonight and tomorrow at the Middle East Downstairs. October 24 & 25.