As I've grown older and more experienced in the ways of the world, it's become apparent that there are certain bands that it would be advantageous to like in order to get ahead socially. For instance, if I wanted approval from stoners, I'd just say that I really, really liked Tool. If I wanted acceptance from the workmen currently painting the exterior of my house, I'd pretend to like AC/DC and other bogan rock bands. And if I wanted to get cute indie girls to talk to me, I'd develop a sudden appreciation for Death Cab For Cutie.

But call me a purist if you will, but I just can't do it. Ben Gibbard is good at writing what he sets out to write, which are schmaltzy indie love songs that are far too sentimental and sappy for my liking. I'm not questioning his motives; he's no cynic and I believe that he genuinely feels what he writes in his songs, and he's backed up by an instrumental section that has some genuine talent in it. But his songs just feel emotionally neutral to me, with the emotion being laid on so thick that it sounds like The Cure but without the interesting ideas and sounds behind it.

"Narrow Stairs" is apparently the band trying to break out of this mould, and embrace a more experimental style. To me, it sounds more like a band flailing around trying to do something different, but not exactly sure what that should be. A wide variety of musical styles are tried over the forty-five minute duration this album, but the constant shifts of tone and genre mean that the album never actually manages to pick up any steam, and on the odd occasion where it does manage to stay in one place, it does so for far too long.

Take the extended introduction to I Will Possess Your Heart, for instance. It sounds good enough for a throwaway jam, but to shoehorn it onto the front of a so-so pop song is baffling. If it absolutely had to be included, it should have been separated out and included as a "Part 2" instrumental track somewhere in the second half of the album, rather than assembled as it is into a musical Frankenstein's monster. Bixby Canyon Bridge, which has some otherwise welcome musical muscle to it, suffers the same fate, with a seemingly endless bridge section stuck into the middle of the song for no good reason.

Other songs on the album are equally as disappointing. Pity and Fear sounds uncomfortably close to something that Phil Collins might have done. You Can Do Better Than Me, on the other hand, shows that the band are happy just retreading the same old ground again on this album, and tracks like Grapevine Fires and No Sunlight are just generic indie rock tracks, with nothing in particular that makes them stand out apart from the name of the band performing them. Like on most mediocre albums, the songs eventually begin to bleed together into one long blur of music, and it becomes difficult to tell when one song has ended and another has begun.

It would be wrong to say that this is a terrible album, but it is for the most part bland and generic. The attempts to make material that doesn't sound like vintage Death Cab fall flat on their faces, and the songs that apply the usual formula just aren't that great. A teenager discovering this music for the first time might find that Gibbard's emotional lyrics speak to them, but for those of us who have already experienced true heartbreak, it's a case of nothing to see here. Well, unless you're willing to put up with this to meet cute indie girls, of course.