After releasing The Georgia EP for a 24-hour span on Bandcamp during December, Death Cab For Cutie has finally made their five-song EP available to the public. The EP was initially created to raise money for Stacey Abrams’s Fair Fight voter rights organization ahead of January’s Georgia Senate runoff elections. Death Cab For Cutie ended up raising $100,000 for their efforts and the runoff ended in victory for the Democratic candidates.
The Georgia EP includes covers of five Georgia natives: REM, TLC, Neutral Milk Hotel, Cat Power, and Vic Chestnutt, with Death Cab’s own easy, cerebral spin. Death Cab For Cutie have managed to maintain their indie darling status even 18 years after they became a skater-kid staple and the unofficial soundtrack to The O.C. Death Cab’s first album came out all the way back in 1998 and yet nothing of theirs feels dated or trite. Their lighthearted, unapologetically emotional lyrics and raw melodies still manage to touch that nerve inside of us that makes music such a personal experience.
Even on an EP of cover tracks, Death Cab For Cutie are recognizably themselves. The tracks themselves are excellent matches for Death Cab For Cutie’s musical identity. However, where TLC’s Waterfalls ordinarily has a more energetic, poppy vibe to it, Death Cab strips it down, reels it back, and bids us lie back, take a minute, and just enjoy this time and this sound.
Death Cab For Cutie is one of those bands that I tend to invariably associate with my childhood. The first band t-shirt I ever bought for myself, not at a concert, but at a Hot Topic of course. The poster I kept on my bedroom wall, the albums I asked for for my birthday every time there was a new one. It’s a unique experience to really grow up alongside a band, and listening to them 14 years after hearing them for the first time feels like a trip through a time machine. Everything has changed. Nothing has changed. I still love this band.
