‘Field Manual’ is indie-rock uber-producer and Death Cab For Cutie member Chris Walla’s second solo album (according to Wikipedia the first is a bootleg that is near impossible to find). As a major fan of DCFC, I was looking forward to hearing how near or far his solo work is to the Death Cab sound. The answer: a very close next door neighbour.
The album opens with ‘Two-Fifty’, where mechanical syncopation echoes the lyrical theme of industrial decay. It’s immediately apparent that Walla’s voice is similar to DCFC vocalist Ben Gibbard, but without Gibbard’s range. They are both gentle and and at times delicate.
Whilst there doesn’t appear to be any fractures within the band (Walla confirms this in the interviews mentioned below), the album feels oddly like a band break-up album, though perhaps I am reading the metaphors of the lyrics too specifically. For instance, when he sings “I tried to give you everything, you need to know I live to hold on” in ‘Our Plans, Collapsing’ (another nod to disintegration), it could just as easily be to a loved one. But the repetition of these direct references to fracture and fumbles feels a little too impersonal at times to have sprung from a romantic relationship. Even ‘Sing Again’, his poppy Jon Brion-esque singalong feels at times like a farewell letter to his bandmates, lamenting an ennui that remains despite their combined success.
The album is full of beautiful production quirks, the kind of mastery of the studio that comes easily for a longtime producer like Walla (who produced The Decemberists ‘The Crane Wife’ and Tegan and Sara’s ‘The Con’). His instrumentation is deft (Walla plays all instruments but drums on the album), and his use of harmony and double tracked vocals is very reminiscent of the DCFC albums.
Second track ‘The Score’ is the most fun of the album, with a catchy pop hook that you can’t help but bob your head to. But Walla has always been one to wear his political heart on his sleeve, and throughout the album it is this philisophical bent that tends to overpower the simplicity of heartfelt expression. His idealism pops up on the ephemeral ‘A Bird Is A Song’, where he confesses ‘I do not need to see, but I need a vision’, but it is on the too-clever by half ‘Archer v Light’ where the over-literate lyricism really loses its effect as it delves into material that not even The Decemberists could bring to life.
Perhaps worse is the attempted irony of ‘It’s Unsustainable’, which swells to what should be a moving climax but is undercut by the repeated double-negative line, “it’s not unsustainable.” It’s all a bit too clunky for the desired effect.
The best song on the album is ‘Geometry &C’, a riffy, relentlessly upbeat song that reminded me of the energetic yet emotive pop-punk of Jimmy Eat World.
Walla’s solo material is not as dynamic as DCFC, but it has it’s own charm; the appeal of Walla’s tender voice grows on repeated listens, and his musical bent is heavy on melody, though a little repetitive in style. It’s an admirable though not entirely successful attempt at combining Walla’s personal politics with his pop-rock influences.
For Death Cab fans, it will be enough to hold us over until the release of ‘Narrow Stairs’ later this year.
My Rating: 6.5/10
You can listen to a couple of cool MP3 interviews with Chris Walla here.