The Postal Service - Give Up (CD)

The Best Album of 2003

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Jun 23, 2004 | 2 out of 2 found this Give Up review helpful

Pros: lyrics, melodies, beats, overall sound

Cons: over-technoism

from: the State of Art It seems simple enough: a preprogrammed beat off of your drum machine, add some ridiculously ‘80s synth sounds and some basic guitar riffs, and top it off with some straight-from-the-gut lyrics about your everyday feelings and... viola, an album! But this is no everyday album. This is the best album of the year, quite possibly of the entire decade. The Postal Service’s Give Up is the first full album collaborative effort between two very active and up and coming artists. Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie fame and Jimmy Tamborello from Dntel meshed creative nerve cells with synapses of the United States’ mail delivery system in this experimental project. For anyone unfamiliar with the duo’s method for recording, think Pony Express. The sound throughout the album is home to anyone who was alive during the Eighties. This could have its drawbacks and risks being extremely played out and clichéed, but the over-smooth music is balanced out by Gibbard’s down to Earth vocals and his noticeably rock style. Jen Wood and Jenny Lewis also bring a bright compliment to Gibbard. In addition the harsh static-like syncopated beats that splash throughout the songs give the songs an edge that Ah-ha or the Human League never had. This is definitely music of the Twenty First century. The album starts off with the most instantly approachable song, “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight,” which builds slowly into a frenzied techno/rock wonder that makes you wonder how they did that with your ear. You heard the song all along: keyboards, beats and vocals, more of the same... soon you’re boppin’ your head and singing so loud that the people in the closed up car next to you can hear, and the hair on the back of your neck stands up. How’d they do that?The lyrics are impressively vivid and personal which is typical of anything heard in Death Cab, but yet nothing from them has sounded so good. Likewise, if you remove the vocals and lyrics from the music, you are left with a waterless octopus (very limp). The two units fit together like puzzle pieces and it’s hard to recall what the pieces sounded like separated. Each song has a distinct identity if all linked by the obvious techno undertones. While some tell nice anecdotes (“Clark Gable”), some are light and airy and not much besides (“We Will Become Silhouettes”). While most are a gorgeous combination of synth and vocals, a few get too ugly in the New Order way. Jen Wood’s beautiful melodies in “Nothing Better”, are overshadowed by the clanging, misplaced electronics. The album is extremely consistent and as such the sound gets a bit tiresome after 30 minutes, but a change in tempo (“Recycled Air”) and some of the best melodies of the decade make each minute of listening to the album a valuable one. It’s hard to say to where this project will lead, but with such busy artists (and this being the side project for both), it might be well advised to leave well enough alone. But it is this writer’s wish, along with hundreds of thousands, as well, that they continue their experiment. Read more Less