4. Something About Airplanes (1998)

Something About Airplanes is music by the best band playing your small liberal-arts college. It doesn’t matter that this came out in a heightened period of bands working in standard indie-rock tropes (Built To Spill, Modest Mouse, etc.), the sound is still relevant. But you’re full of growing pains in college, and this album has them, too. There are clear indications that the quartet might grow to become impeccable songwriters — and the aural contributions are a lot to write home about, in song-structure, the invaluable innovation from standard-issue Pacific Northwest sound, and Gibbard’s taffy-malleable yet still impenetrable voice. There’s a thinness, however, to tracks like “President Of What?,” “Bend To Squares,” and “Pictures In An Exhibition” (Note: Many tracks that appear on Airplanes can be found on You Can Play These Songs With Chords, and those earlier versions are better because of their grittiness), and Death Cab excels most when their music has more muscle to it. As the album drifts toward its close, songs “The Face That Launched 1000 Shits” and “Fake Frowns” begin to make it a more robust product, the textures foreshadowing more concentrated music to come.