THE POSTAL SERVICE
We Will Become Silhouettes (Sub-Pop)
Reviewed by Erick Mertz

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Regenerations of source material experience a deterioration of the original quality; anyone who has ever recorded something off of television, or copied onto a cassette knows that an impenetrable grain and fuzz are certainty. Copies such as these are placeholders, something most people utilize to bridge the gap before some re-issue, re-release or other.

Death Cab for Cutie front man Benjamin Gibbard's pet project is The Postal Service, and 2003 saw underground semi-smashes for both outfits of the San Francisco exile. The former is ostensibly the rock and roll arm, while the latter is more of a child's toy, consisting largely of saccharine pop compositions as catchy and substantial as bubble gum chewing and old video game music. If anyone doesn't know Gibbard's shtick, he plays the lovelorn passive, clad in a stocking cap, subject of a hundred romantic comedies. When he allows himself the framework of a rock song, he doesn't sound quite so indulgent - poignant almost; as mouthpiece for a synthesizer snowstorm, he is dangerously close to trivial.

Gibbard's music output is analogous to the source material/duplication analogy. What you consider the "source" material colors how you view pet project's We Will Become Silhouettes, a four song remix EP of songs from Give Up. In this reviewer's opinion, it is his work at the helm of The Postal Service that is the deteriorated placeholder on the road to more of what Death Cab for Cutie has in store.

© 2005 - Erick Mertz