“Please forgive me, these nights my head is full of stars” is the opening line on Death Cab For Cutie‘s 11th studio album. While ‘sad and wistful’ is pretty much the band’s default mode, it’s the first clue that I Built You A Tower is primarily concerned with frontman Ben Gibbard’s recent divorce.

It’s also the first album that the band has released since they embarked on a nostalgia-heavy tour with Gibbard’s other band The Postal Service, performing both Transatlanticism and Give Up in full. Given that, it’s not surprising that much of I Built You A Tower harks back to the band’s glory days, with some songs displaying a surprisingly harsher edge than has been on display in recent years.

Mostly though, the mood is downbeat. That opening track, Full Of Stars, feels like a postmortem of Gibbard’s marriage – “I’ve got this anguish I know will never be satisfied” he softly sings over a strummed acoustic, and when he reaches a line like “All I need is for you to be kind, but it seems it’s rarely worth your time”, it’s clear that this is a very particular type of break-up album.

Reunited with producer John Congleton (who was behind the decks for the band’s last album, 2022’s Asphalt Meadows), there’s a warm glow of familiarity about many of the songs. Pep Talk has chiming guitars and an uplifting melody that masks the desolation of the lyrics – “now I find I’m waking up at sunrise, just lying in bed, giving myself a pep talk just to survive the day ahead”. Trap Door has a hypnotic synth riff that brings to mind The Postal Service, while the title track appears in two versions – the first is a typical Death Cab arrangement: bittersweet and poignant, while the second rendition that closes the album has a restless, chaotic energy about it that sounds quite thrilling.

In fact, the diversions from Gibbard’s normal arrangements are often the most intriguing parts of the album. How Heavenly A State is one of the heaviest Death Cab songs for years, full of discordant, feedback-heavy guitars which sound like they’ve been borrowed from Interpol. Punching The Flowers also has an angry, aggressive edge to it, powered by Nick Harmer’s driving bassline and some electrifying guitar riffs. The fact that the lyrics are obviously about the end of Gibbard’s marriage (“All she heard was the sound of slamming doors”) gives the song an added, almost voyeuristic edge.

Perhaps the best moment is saved for towards the end though, the magnificently propulsive Riptides, which seems to steadily build a head of steam until a crashing wave of guitars echo the emotional maelstrom of Gibbard’s anguished lyrics: “I’m too tired to talk, I’m too tired to end the war, and I can’t seem to hold it together anymore”.

While Death Cab For Cutie has never produced a bad album as such, there’s definitely been a sense that they’ve been slightly treading water, creatively speaking. Of course, it’s a cliché to say that from great pain springs great art, but Gibbard’s emotional travails over the past few years certainly seem to have reinvigorated the band. In fact, it’s produced what may be the band’s best album since Plans. A much welcome return to form.