Back when Death Cab For Cutie had only begun peeking their heads above the underground, their annual Chicago stomping ground was the venerable Metro.

Appearing: Thursday, August 25th at UIC Pavilion in Chicago, with Frightened Rabbit.

Though the Washington-based indie rockers have since graduated to headlining arenas and festivals (including Lollapalooza in 2006), their most recent trip back in May stopped on North Clark Street and served as a showcase for material from the new Codes And Keys (Atlantic), plus a chance for the band to reconnect with their roots.

“I think that whole tour was kind of an underplay tour, or some would call it a warm-up tour,” suggests guitarist/keyboardist/producer (and sometime solo artist) Chris Walla. “It was really a nice chance for us to get back to some of our favorite places, because all of our favorite venues hold around 700 to 1,300 people. We’ve spent more time playing in venues like Metro and those like it all over the country than any other size club. It was a good opportunity to field-test the new songs and play a bunch of the old songs to remember what it was like to be a rock ‘n’ roll band.”

In the three years since the group’s last full-length album, the members have been busy with a multitude of projects, from 2009’s The Open Door EP to a slot on the The Twilight Saga: New Moon soundtrack and a slew of personal endeavors. Most visibly, frontman Ben Gibbard tied the knot with actress Zooey Deschanel (Elf, (500) Days Of Summer), while Walla used the hiatus to produce projects by The Lonely Forest, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, The Thermals, and The Tragically Hip’s Gordon Downie.

“I’ve learned how to balance [both worlds] by not being in a relationship, which is the shortest and easier answer,” he lets out with a laugh. “It’s pathetic and sad, but between the band and being a producer, I live two semi-monastic lifestyles. I’m kind of a process hound these days since everything happens with such immediacy in the world of computers. [With Codes And Keys] I really wanted to try and slow down the process and take the impulsivity out and put the consideration in. In the process of doing that, it required a kind of removing the electric guitars from the first part of the record-making process and focusing on making melodic and harmonic beds out of instruments that don’t want to make melodic or harmonic beds. We made sure that we weren’t committing to anything too quickly. That was our biggest goal, to change all the tools in the tool box and give it a different perspective of how and why we were committing to songs for a record. It’s more of a record than a recording.”

Just take a listen to the delicate, shoegazing nature of new cuts like “Some Boys” and “Underneath The Sycamore,” which find the group’s already close chemistry clamping down even tighter. Add in the chilling and sublime soundscapes of “You Are A Tourist” and “Portable Television” with the aggressive shades of “Doors Unlocked And Open” and the methodical approach certainly paid off. The 11-track journey also benefits from a plethora of warm harmonies and lyrics that longtime listeners are likely to find relatable, even if they’re sometimes inspired from second-hand sources.

“I think [Ben's marriage] is a huge part of the record, but it’s not all of the record,” notices Walla of Death Cab’s primary lyricist. “They’re certainly not all autobiographical, even though he’s writing from the perspective of characters. It’s easy to assume with a singer/songwriter that when he says ‘I,’ he means ‘I the writer’ even though that’s not an assumption you’d make about an actor in a film or if you were writing a story. I’d say [he's coming from a personal place] 30-percent of the time and 70-percent of the time it’s not so literal.”

Continues Walla, “Codes And Keys means a lot of different things. It sort of ties into the process of making the record – the idea of access and immediacy being behind a string of numbers, followed by the pound key. It’s so much of our lives, whether we enter a code before we access our bank account, our cell-phone account, our storage locker, or our apartment. It’s a protective barrier, but it’s also a door. The pound key is kind of like the thing that gets you through a lack of human interaction into a place that resembles home or something you need to have access to make your home a little bit better.”

For the rest of this summer, the band won’t be spending any time at home. The Codes And Keys tour will make a second sweep across the States to unveil the band’s latest round of provocative wordplay and warm sounds. Though an arena presentation will never be able to make up for the intimacy of a club, there are a few advantages during this leg, including a tighter sound and longer setlist.

“Even though the Metro show was great, it was a little ramshackle in spots, but we’re certainly playing everything better at this point,” contends Walla. “By the time we come back to Chicago, I think we’ll be doing a few more old songs and also a few more from the new record. There will certainly be more production, and while I haven’t seen it yet, I’m told there will be lots of lights.”

– Andy Argyrakis

For the full interview, grab the August issue of Illinois Entertainer, available free throughout Chicagoland.

Somewhere over the course of the last decade, Death Cab For Cutie went from college-radio regulars to darlings of “The O.C.” and headlining Lollapalooza. The band are far from the indie upstart they once were, both in terms of exposure and delivery, with venue stops in recent years reflecting that. All of which made Friday night’s show at the Metro more personal and uncommon for this point in the group’s career.

Touching down in Chicago in advance of the forthcoming Codes And Keys (Atlantic), Death Cab performed a set that visited the various stages of their career, from “Photobooth” off 2000’s The Forbidden Love EP to the immediate and mature Keys cut “Underneath The Sycamore.” In fact, the band offered a fair amount of preview from their upcoming effort, with the sonically spacious “Some Boys” providing an infectious kinetic energy, while “Doors Unlocked And Open” proved driving and direct. Both live and on record, Codes And Keys is a far livelier and more engaging experience than Death Cab’s previous two studio efforts, 2005’s Plans and 2008’s Narrow Stairs. Both of the latter were, however, represented, through a full-band version of “Soul Meets Body” featuring frontman Ben Gibbard on acoustic guitar, and an “I Will Possess Your Heart” that sported more life live than on record, respectively.

As the band wound down their set with encore selections, the focus shifted to earlier albums. In 2011, “Title And Registration” has been elevated beyond its initial melancholia, while “A Movie Script Ending” remained true to its sing-songy roots. Closing out, the group delivered a sparse, keyboard-based version of the steadily building title cut off 2002’s Transatlanticism that became increasingly triumphant in its majestically melancholy ambitions. And while the days of Death Cab dealing almost solely in sorrow and playing comparably more intimate rooms like the Metro are more or less over, it was nice of them to visit.

– Jaime de’Medici

Son Volt’s Jay Farrar and Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard met after being asked to record songs for the Jack Kerouac documentary that shares titles with this album. They then bonded and wrote some more.

Appearing: Monday, October 26th at Lincoln Hall in Chicago.

Kerouac’s Big Sur was released in 1962, like On The Road is semi-autobiographical, and, unlike On The Road, finds him plummeting into hell (he’d be dead in seven years). In the midst of painful alcoholism, the book chronicles a writer struggling with his fame and addictions, and an inability to function like a human being for those he loves. It’s dark, heavy shit and the album cleverly springs off with Gibbard singing “California Zephyr,” hitting the road once again and trying to find peace out West. The duo have taken some liberties with Kerouac’s text, though try to remain true. But as soon as Farrar’s somber voice grips the album on “Low Life Kingdom,” the whole thing starts to sink. The remaining mashes flow like tar, taking a yawning eternity to pass. Farrar and Gibbard fully understand that Big Sur is not a happy book, but never once consider including the delirium or violent pain of alcohol withdrawal — a frequent occurrence in the novel — to break up the album’s awful monotony.

Further, it appears to be a collaboration in name only. Despite their bonding, Farrar and Gibbard never sound like they’re sharing the same recording booth much less ideas. Farrar also has the unfortunate specter of his ex-Uncle Tupelo bandmates hooking up with Billy Bragg to record unused Woody Guthrie material on Mermaid Avenue. Those songs, expanded to a second disc, used Guthrie’s words as a launching pad to explore the sounds of the activist’s America. Farrar can’t even get his subject out of bed.

– Steve Forstneger

Given where Death Cab have landed in their career, their appearance on a program like WTTW’s “Soundstage” seems fitting. The established-artist showcase syncs up with the group’s continual march from former indie darlings to mature, adult-alternative act, as evidenced on 2005’s Plans as well as last year’s Narrow Stairs. Thus, it only made sense that the outfit would focus entirely on their recent and more musically ambitious and realized material, while steering clear of simpler and more-innocent earlier indie fare.

Taking the stage before a well-dressed and even better-behaved studio audience, the Bellingham, Washington act performed against five screens of abstract video footage, set between maroon curtains. The group moved freely through their most recent offerings, even dipping into the recently released The Open Door EP (Atlantic), though never venturing further back than 2003’s Transatlanticism. Instead, Death Cab presented fully realized versions of their more serious, heady material. Occasionally, frontman Ben Gibbard offered awkward banter between songs, proving the frontman a better vocalist than conversationalist.

Fortunately, such moments were few and far between. The majority of the time Gibbard opened his mouth, it worked in his favor. The newer “My Mirror Speaks” proved one of the more melodic Death Cab selections in recent memory, with undeniable verses effortlessly providing the heavy lifting. Elsewhere, Gibbard turned “The Sound Of Settling” into more of a straightforward rock venture than its recorded pop counterpart, as drummer Jason McGeer populated the song with a single repeating and clashing cymbal. And Narrow Stairs highlight “Your Heart Is An Empty Room” proved infectiously uptempo, even dipping into a low hush midway through before quickly rising back to full instrumentation.

Often, selections displayed noticeable enhancement from their album incarnations. “The New Year” came off especially charged, simultaneously emphasizing the studio’s sweeping, pristine sound. Later, bassist Nick Harmer delivered additional muscle to the typically understated “Summer Skin.” And the upbeat and excited “Long Division” showcased incendiary guitar interplay between Gibbard and guitarist Chris Walla, building up to a frenzied, cacophonous bridge.

As Death Cab’s predilection for experimental jamming has become increasingly apparent over the years, it seemed a given that the group would venture into more extended territory. Throughout its ever-expanding instrumental intro, Harmer took a reverb-soaked version of “I Will Possess Your Heart” for a bass-led walk down a long and winding pier. And spacious closer “Transatlanticism” grew from the song’s familiar and echoing backing track, whirring out of speakers above the stage. With the room’s lights dimming to match the selection’s mood, the group moved into an extended jam, as the song unspooled its epic sprawl. What began as a tender offering, featuring Gibbard visiting keys for a portion of the track, soon built to an overpowering showing, with McGeer banging away while the song amassed surprising volume and speed. Yet almost as quickly as the track reached a passionate plateau, the outfit caught themselves and allowed the ambitious venture, not to mention their set, to fade out, humming. And while the evening’s ending may have felt abrupt, the group knew enough to make what time they had count, delivering a set full of layered and accomplished offerings. After all, they are professionals now.

– Jaime de’Medici

The Death Cab For Cutie episode of “Soundstage” airs Thursday, July 9th at 9 p.m. on WTTW-11 Chicago.