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Transatlanticism is the fourth studio album by Rock music band Death Cab for Cutie, released on October 7, 2003, by Barsuk Records. At this point in their career, the group had toured and recorded for nearly a half-decade. With tensions rising, the band decided to take time away from one another; notably, Ben Gibbard collaborated with electronic musician Dntel (Jimmy Tamborello), and released an album, Give Up, under the name the Postal Service. Death Cab regrouped in late 2002 to create Transatlanticism, which was recorded in a leisurely manner over five-day stretches until June 2003.
The record is a concept album, exploring a theme of long-distance romance. Gibbard penned the lyrics, which are somber and focus on the need to be loved. Musically, the album utilizes ambience and instrumental sparseness as an extension of this theme. The album's title, likewise, references the Atlantic Ocean and uses it as a metaphor for geographic and emotional separation. Chris Walla, the band's guitarist, produced the album as he had for its predecessors. The album's artwork was created by artist Adde Russell.
Prior to the album's release, Give Up had become a huge success, eventually going platinum—unusual territory for indie rock artists. The band were also referenced on the television drama The O.C., which increased their profile. Expectations for Transatlanticism were high, with the band receiving renewed attention. The album was a success: it charted at number 97 on the Billboard 200, and was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for shipments of 1,000,000 copies in the United States. It received acclaim from music critics, who praised its emotional tone and expansive music. It is also the band's first album with drummer Jason McGerr.
The Photo Album creation was rushed for financial reasons. Each band member had recently left their , with the band now their primary source of income for the first time. They had also set a tour for later in the year, which led to a rushed, difficult recording process. Upon its release, The Photo Album represented the group's biggest success yet. It sold over 50,000 records at that time, which was unprecedented for an indie band. Despite this, relations between the band grew strained. The group had issues with Schorr, and Walla—who enjoyed recording music more than performing it—was feeling exhausted by the entire experience. It culminated in a tense fight at a tour stop in Baltimore in October 2001 where the band nearly broke up. After their touring commitments were complete, the band took a hiatus.
Gibbard moved to the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, and began collaborating with electronic music artist Dntel (Jimmy Tamborello). The duo completed an album together, titled Give Up, which was issued on Sub Pop Records in February 2003. It became a bigger success than either had imagined, selling over 500,000 copies within its first two years of release, and over one million within the decade. Walla, meanwhile, continued to explore his interest in recording, producing albums by the Thermals and the Decemberists. By the time the band regrouped to work on their next album, tensions had cooled. Schorr had departed the band and was replaced by drummer Jason McGerr. His addition assisted in bringing stability to the band, as his calm demeanor helped settle the band's previous dynamic.
In contrast to the negative atmosphere that produced its predecessor, the working environment for Transatlanticism was a kind and creative one. McGerr's joining the band refreshed their own commitment to the project, including Walla, who had at various times threatened to leave in the past. Gibbard considered it key that Walla was enjoying himself, and cited it as an integral piece to the album's success. To help spark inspiration during the recording process, the quartet utilized Oblique Strategies, a card-based method for promoting creativity jointly created by musician Brian Eno and painter Peter Schmidt, first published in 1975. As with previous Death Cab records, Transatlanticism was recorded entirely on analog tape, avoiding the convenience of digital technology. With the extra time taken in the studio, the fidelity of the album is of a considerably higher quality than previous efforts. The band recorded 12 songs, but left one incomplete at the time of its release.
Prior to the album's release, Gibbard stated: "...unlike The Photo Album, I feel like this record is definitely more like a proper album. We’ve tried to construct it with transitions of songs going in and out of each other, and I think it's a little bit more expansive than the last record."
Greenwald, writing for MTV, writes that the album's songs "slow dance between genres—lush, sensitive piano ballads bump up against and blur into kaleidoscopic guitar grooves." The album emphasizes ambient noises, including "clicks, whooshes, and whirs"; the title track, for example, is built around the humming of an airplane engine. Its mood is often somber or dark, which Gibbard figured was an extension of his point of view in life: "I have this sense of realism that sometimes is a little depressing," he confessed to Magnet in 2003. Jim Fusilli, writing for The Wall Street Journal, found the content on the album "often-gloomy, but yearning-for-optimism." Walla rejected the notion that the content on the album was bleak, noting that Gibbard's lyrics are mainly a "real simple expression of need and needing to be loved." Kelefa Sanneh, writing for The New York Times, observed that an extension of the album's long-distance theme lies in each song's reliance "upon a single, fragile-sounding melodic line—a skein of broken guitar chords, a reverberating piano."
"Transatlanticism" serves as the album's centerpiece — the apex of its narrative of love, distance, and disconnection. For the track, the band used Weezer's "Only in Dreams" as a touchpoint when developing it. "Passenger Seat" was written two days after the 9/11 attacks, and its pastoral tone hearkens to a more innocent frame of mind in the wake of its chaos. “Death of an Interior Decorator” is a melancholic character study, inspired by Woody Allen’s 1978 drama Interiors. A brooding reflection on the impulsive lust of young love, "We Looked Like Giants" was the first song the band recorded for the LP. In the demo version of "Giants", the second verse was entirely different; Gibbard later scrapped it in favor of more atmospheric, imagery-rich lyrics like: "In a shroud of frost, the mountain air / began to pass / from every pane of weathered glass." In "A Lack of Color", the lyric "call at 7:03" subtly nods to the Washington, D.C. area code, a detail connected to Gibbard's previous romantic partner, who had relocated there. Afterwards, the album winds down to the familiar noise of city traffic, creating a perfect loop. Gibbard recorded the found sounds during the dead of night from his attic apartment in Capitol Hill. Rich Smith, writing for The Stranger, noted that the song reflects several of the album’s themes: "longing and its 'endless distances,' as the West Coast poet Robert Hass would have it, and the paradise/prison of permanence we find in the notions of home and romantic relationships."
Eric Gansworth, writing for At Length magazine, describes the album's inner sleeve:
Transatlanticism was released on October 7, 2003, by Barsuk Records. It was released physically on compact disc, double-LP vinyl, and cassette; additionally, the record saw digital distribution on the iTunes Store, which had debuted that year. In addition to regular formats, Barsuk also issued a limited release for audiophiles on SACD, the initial successor to CDs that purported to have higher audio quality and more storage. Walla extolled the possibilities of the format in a profile for CMJ at that time: "I think on a really subconscious level, SACDs music more compelling to listen to," he said. Initial sales projections from the label were for first-week sales of between 6–8,000 copies. It debuted to over 15,000 copies sold, and became their first album to chart on Billboard 200 at number 97. It had sold over 100,000 copies by the following April, and by end of 2004, it had moved 225,000 copies. By 2007, the record had reached 530,000 copies sold, which music journalist Greg Kot judged was "a massive hit by indie-rock standards". On April 29, 2008, it was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
In 2013, to celebrate the album's tenth anniversary, Barsuk reissued the LP on vinyl. The label also released Transatlanticism Demos, a collection of demo versions of songs from Transatlanticism.
Its touring commitments for Transatlanticism included spots at the 2004 Coachella Festival in Indio, California, New York's Siren Festival, Q101's "Block Party" in Chicago, and the "Bite of Portland" festival, a fundraiser for the Special Olympics Oregon. Pearl Jam invited the band to open for them on their 2004 Vote for Change tour, and the band concluded the year with another headlining tour across the U.S., between October and November 2004. They were originally set to open for pop punk group Blink-182 that December, but the band had to cancel as Gibbard developed a benign cyst on his leg that required surgery and a rest period. All of the touring for Transatlanticism took place Stateside; touring overseas was complicated for the band, as their record label contracts were split between nine different companies there. These issues and the band's rising stardom led them to court major-labels in 2004. The band's touring behind Transatlanticism is documented in the film Drive Well, Sleep Carefully by director Justin Mitchell.
In The A.V. Club, Stephen Thompson said the record "surpasses Gibbard's other career highpoints", calling it "a lush, impeccably produced, musically adventurous, emotionally resonant examination of the way relationships are both strengthened and damaged by distance". PopMatters critic Christine Klunk said it was a "nearly perfect pop record" whose straightforward melodies and honest narratives extolled the human condition. William Morris from Pitchfork was more critical, lamenting what he felt were Gibbard's more generalized lyrics and less edge to the band's "usually acute divinations". Stylus Magazines Colin McElligatt said despite his strong melodies, he had regressed as a lyricist and sounded more "asinine" than before. In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau cited "We Looked Like Giants" as a "choice cut", indicating "a good song on an album that isn't worth your time or money".
In 2011, Transatlanticism was named by NPR Music as one of the fifty most important recordings of the 2000s decade, while Rolling Stone ranked it 57th on the magazine's decade-end list. In 2013, Death Cab for Cutie re-released the album, marking its 10th anniversary with a remaster available as vinyl or MP3 download, including demos for all the songs from the album. In a retrospective piece that year, Entertainment Weeklys Kyle Anderson called Transatlanticism a "classic indie-rock album", while Pitchfork editor Ian Cohen wrote, "few records open themselves up to forge those kind of moments, to be a formative emotional and listening experience, pushing you to feel what you're thinking (to flip a line from 'Lightness'), daring to be universal enough to allow you to see yourself in it."
The band sparked a major-label bidding war, with A&R representatives viewing them as America's answer to the band Coldplay. Interscope's Jimmy Iovine vied to sign both the Postal Service and Death Cab, reportedly exclaiming, "Why would I only want the one that doesn't sell as much as the other one?" Gibbard viewed the band's increasing profile excitedly: "We're over being an indie rock band. We're proud of what we've accomplished, but it's far more exciting to me to reach an audience that stretches beyond any genre or age group." By November 2004, the group had left Barsuk and signed a worldwide, long-term deal with major label Atlantic Records. The process to sign the band was a difficult, year-long affair; Atlantic had to buy out the rest of the quartet's Barsuk contract and pay that label for the remaining two albums it owed them.
Gibbard has since ranked Transatlanticism as his favorite album by the band, remarking that with both the release of Give Up and Transatlanticism, "I’ve never had a more creatively inspired year."
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