Support truly
independent journalism
The sound of 2003 was the feather-light yearning of Ben Gibbard, nasal frontman of Death Cab for Cutie and the blueprint for every proto-softboi with an unrequited crush and their headphones permanently on. Between Transatlanticism, the band’s fourth album of hazy indie-rock balladry, and the lite electronica of his short-lived but cherished side-project The Postal Service, Gibbard created a safe space for a generalised kind of young-adult melancholy. On paper, it feels doomed – even wrong, somehow – to try and extricate him from a world of Garden State and Seth Cohen and plant him in 2024. Yet here we are: Gibbard and his bands performing to a sea of thirtysomething nostalgia-heads at London’s All Points East festival: Noughties minimalism transplanted to a massive field in Victoria Park. Somehow it works.
