Music Reviews: Death Cab For Cutie, Duffy

Death Cab For Cutie, “Narrow Stairs” (Atlantic)

Making the jump from an indie label to a major one can spell disaster, and many a fan heralded the demise of Death Cab For Cutie after their unfairly criticized Atlantic debut, 2005’s “Plans.”

Again boasting slick production and a new direction for their sound, Death Cab’s follow-up, “Narrow Stairs,” will shatter any expectations about this band — and here it’s a compliment.

Typically grounded in warm and bright flavors, Death Cab have widened their scope dramatically on “Narrow Stairs,” with synth providing dark tones and biting atmosphere — the disc floats and echoes.

Death Cab still cover the same heartfelt territory — love and happiness, rejection and regret — just with a lot more aplomb.

Disc opener “Bixby Canyon Bridge” provides a jolt, with a soft intro and frontman Ben Gibbard’s emotive vocals lulling you in before a hard riff hits you over the head.

Impressive lead single “I Will Possess Your Heart” boasts an ambitious intro — maybe too much so — propelled by bass and piano before Gibbard flashes his typical eloquence: “How I wish you could see the potential/The potential of you and me/It’s like a book elegantly bound/But in a language you can’t read just yet.”

The disc is nicely balanced between driving rock — the poppy “No Sunlight,” anthemic “Cath,” and joyous retro vibe of “Long Division” and “Pity and Fear” — and moody mid-tempo ballads — a poetic “Grapevine Fires” and the self-deprecating oddity of “You Can Do Better Than Me.”

“Narrow Stairs” is a knockout, and will make you throw out everything you’ve come to know about Death Cab For Cutie.

CHECK THIS TRACK OUT: Equally sad and romantic, “Your New Twin Sized Bed” is a sweet lament to heartbreak, and Gibbard’s longing vocal will touch anyone who’s spent a rainy day crying in bed.

Duffy, “Rockferry” (Mercury)

Duffy’s debut album could slip in between Dionne Warwick and Dusty Springfield on a collector’s shelf, but the 23-year-old pop-soul ingenue says she developed her sound without hearing either artist.

Still, the singer-songwriter, who grew up in a remote Welsh village where top-40 music ruled, embodies the style and substance of a classic ’60s soul diva.

She co-wrote each of the ten tracks on “Rockferry,” an album all about old-fashioned heartbreak. On the title track, Duffy has “a bag of songs and a heavy heart.” She tells a lover they’re finished in the sparsely arranged “Warwick Avenue,” bemoans his lack of attention in “Hanging On Too Long” and tries to keep herself from the arms of a cheater in “Stepping Stone.”

She knows she’s a fool in love and pleads for compassion on the super-catchy single, “Mercy.” Duffy taps into her inner Aretha Franklin on the electro-tinged tune, begging for mercy over a bouncy chorus of yeah, yeah, yeahs.

While none of the album’s other songs are as punchy or uptempo and this toe-tapping track, Duffy delivers a solid, soulful debut with the same retro appeal and promise Amy Winehouse generated with 2006’s “Back to Black.”

“Rockferry” only lags on its final tune — ironically the album’s most positive. A soaring anthem about life’s possibilities laid over an orchestral backdrop, “Distant Dreamer” sounds like the theme song for a cheesy children’s film.

CHECK THIS TRACK OUT: A lone guitar provides the melody and Duffy lets loose with a lovesick wail as she implores her baby to “spend your time on me” in the soulful and spare “Syrup & Honey.”