Track Listing

1. Marching Bands of Manhattan
2. Soul Meets Body
3. Summer Skin
4. Different Names For The Same Thing
5. I Will Follow You Into The Dark
6. Your Heart Is An Empty Room
7. Someday You Will Be Loved
8. Crooked Teeth
9. What Sarah Said
10. Brothers On A Hotel Bed
11. Stable Song

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1744 in Music
• Released on: 2005-08-29
• Number of discs: 1

From the Label
Plans is very much a brother or a sister to Transatlanticism. Despite the title, we never sat down to plan it, it just came out – fully formed – from the momentum of our last two years" says Harmer, but it’s drummer McGerr who perhaps sums it up best: "If Transatlanticism was an inhale, Plans is the exhale."

Plans is a shockingly beautiful and mature album from a group that itself is still maturing. Death Cab for Cutie is that rare band that aren’t afraid to tackle the big thought, to wrestle with the complex, never black and white realities of human interaction. From its soaring beginning to its somber end, ‘Plans’ is the sound of growing up, of gaining friends and losing them, of realising, perhaps for the first time, the weight and consequences of every decision we make, of every heart we touch. It is an album about growing old that can grow old with us.

Customer Reviews

Simply Ground Breaking.
Death Cab for Cutie still amaze me, even today's bands fail to even compare to the careful hounest lyrics of Ben Gibbard.
This Album will blow you away from start to finish. My stand out track on this Album has to be "Your Heart is an Empty Room",belive me it'll tug at your emotions and make you think about your life.

Superb 5th album from Death Cab!
I've had this album for a while now, and it's grown to be one that I value a lot. I was a big fan of Transatlanticism, but I feel that Plans is a much more focused and coherent work, and flows better as an album.

Lyrically, Ben Gibbard touches upon the perils and joys of relationships, his thoughts on growing older, and mortality amongst other things. I feel that a reviewer a couple of reviews below has not given Ben enough credit when he points out a grammatical error in his lyrics. Ben Gibbard writes about deeply personal issues, and the "on accident" lyric from Brothers on a Hotel Bed may well be a personal fault in someone close to him, almost an homage to fallability. Make no mistake, Mr Gibbard is a major factor in this review. The music itself is difficult to describe, however I feel that Tiny Vessels, Transatlanticism and Passenger Seat, from their Transatlanticism album, would be the best match for how this album sounds overall.
The album kicks off with the ever-expanding Marching Bands of Manhattan, with tender lyrical sentiments that build into a mini-crescendo of subdued distortion. From then on we are greeted with a variety of sounds and styles, from the now staple Death Cab crowd-pleasing ballad (I Will Follow You Into the Dark), to ponderings of life and death (What Sarah Said) and a closing track that deals with change and the aging process (Stable Song), which is in fact a re-working of the title track from the Stability EP.

If you are a fan of The Photo Album and/or Transatlanticism, there is plenty on this album to please. Even fans who prefer the earlier, lo-fi sounds of the first two CDs will appreciate the band's attempts to bring that sound out of its claustrophobic roots and out into more accessible territory. Time will tell on whether this album will get the appreciation it deserves, but one thing is for certain: this is an accomplished piece of work from a band that is currently at the top of their game.

Personally, I would recommend this album to existing DCFC fans, but also fans of Clarity-era Jimmy Eat World, the mellower moments of Sunny Day Real Estate, Straylight Run and even more progressive soft acts like Jeniferever. This is an essential purchase for anyone with even a passing interest in epic, emotive American indie music

Death, no, fantastic!!
When I first heard their name, I thought DCFC would be some kind of hard/emo-core band. I've never been so wrong. Plans is, quite simply, very chilled and even more beautiful! There is a certain meaning and almost urgency to the lyrics and style of the album, the songs are beautiful without being gentle or quiet or even particularly slow. It's a fantastic album and one I am very glad I bought, to be honest, I think most people would feel the same!