Death Cab for Cutie Announce New Album I Built You a Tower, Release First Single “Riptides”: Stream

Death Cab for Cutie have announced their new album, I Built You a Tower, and released its first single, “Riptides.” Stream the track below.

The band’s first album in four years, I Built You a Tower is due out on June 5th via ANTI-Records. The project was created during three weeks of recording sessions split between Animal Rites in Los Angeles and the band members’ homes in Seattle, Portland, Bellingham, and Los Angeles.

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In a press release, Death Cab for Cutie’s Benjamin Gibbard, Nick Harmer, and Dave Depper spoke about the creative process and inspiration for I Built You a Tower. For Gibbard, the album’s “tower” stands for the place he protects himself from his struggles. “There’s this need to find a place in ourselves to put loss and grief,” he explained. “A place that can hold it so we can move on with our lives. But there are these moments where the trauma breaks out of that shell we created for it.”

Depper said he was inspired by a desire to create something fresh after coming off tour. “The anniversary tours exorcised any nostalgia in our systems,” he explained. “We felt part of this powerful force greater than all of us and went into the studio with a sense of, how can we capture that feeling and put it into something new?”

Harmer discussed the album’s recording process, noting, “The whole experience of this record got us back to the earliest versions of this band: If the musicians in the room like what we’re working on, that’s enough. We reconnected with the confidence that comes with that.”

To accompany the album’s announcement, DCFC have shared “Riptides,” a morose listen that extracts the feels from your tear ducts. “‘Riptides’ is about the challenge of dealing with overwhelming grief as the world around us experiences tragedy and loss on an unfathomable scale,” said Gibbard. “And how, when these two elements intertwine themselves in our psyches, it feels utterly paralyzing.”

Death Cab for Cutie are going on tour this summer in support of their new album. The trek begins in Minneapolis on July 10th and wraps up in Paso Robles on August 7th. Between then, the tour has stops in major cities like Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Los Angeles. Joining them on the trek on select dates will be Japanese Breakfast, Nation of Language, and Jay Som. Get tickets here.

I Built You A Tower Artwork

I Built You A Tower Tracklist
01. Full of Stars
02. Punching The Flowers
03. Pep Talk
04. I Built You A Tower (a)
05. Envy The Birds
06. Stone Over Water
07. How Heavenly a State
08. Trap Door
09. Riptides
10. The Flavor of Metal
11. I Built You A Tower (b)