Track Listing

1. The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
2. Such Great Heights
3. Sleeping In
4. Nothing Better
5. Recycled Air
6. Clark Gable
7. We Will Become Silhouettes
8. This Place Is a Prison
9. Brand New Colony
10. Natural Anthem

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3425 in Music
• Released on: 2003-02-18
• Number of discs: 1

Album Description
The collaboration between Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard and Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello is an album of breezy electronic pop that updates classic 80s synth-pop with contemporary beats. The line-up also features Jenny Lewis from the band Rilo Kiley. Sub Pop. 2003.

Amazon.com
Give Up, the debut release by this indie supergroup composed of Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie and Jimmy Tamborello from Dntel, is a smart, quaint, and often transcendent little pop record. The roots of the album lie in "(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan," a woozy, gorgeous song recorded for the rad 2001 Dntel album Life Is Full of Possibilities. With Jimmy in L.A. and Ben in Seattle, the two simply mailed tracks back and forth, collaborating via (you guessed it) the United States Post Office. Lyrically it’s far breezier and happier (though not too happy) than anything Gibbard had written up to this point for Death Cab. The music is an elastic, very smart update of synth-pop and the melodies crystal clear, while the backing vocals courtesy of Jen Wood and Jenny Lewis are spartan and pretty. The songs stick in your head for days at a time. Forget the tags that have been thrown up against this music--Poptronica? New new new order? Please just enjoy this album. It just might be a classic--but of what exactly, we’re not quite sure. --Mike McGonigal

Customer Reviews

Deliciously sweet & addictive poptronica
I read a review for this album as "...so good that, in a just world, it would stop the war on its own."

Oh, how right that is.

A distinctly modern melange of nü wave, dance, alterna-pop, and synth, I'd best describe Postal Service as "Electro-indie". If you're a child of the 80s like me who grew up with New Order, OMD, Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys, no need to read further--you'll immediately love "Give Up".

In the midst of NYC's current electroclash craze which is so overhyped at times (gosh, just lay down some minimal synths and have some bored models chant vocals), Postal Service is the outstanding contender as the smartest electro band of the year with an album that's so emotional (melody-wise and lyric-wise), so beautiful, and so well-produced that it puts bands like Fischerspooner to shame. Jenny Lewis' angelic, trance-like girlish voice enhances Gibbard's boyish vocals. Catchy, simple-sounding but beautifully complex, every single track---and I mean every single one--is up to par.

notable faves are:

1- "District Sleeps Alone Tonight" - Angelic and soft, gradual fades of breakbeats, staccatos and instrumentals with enchanting melody and lyrics that speed up and slow down. Gorgeous.
4- "Nothing Better" - Electro pop at its finest. This duet is so unbelievably catchy, melancholic yet bubbly, sweetened with a bouncy bass line and perfectly placed tweaks and twiddles.
9- "Brand New Colony" - An emotional track intertwined with the twinkly theme from Super Mario Brothers. Brimming with nostalgia, you can hear the gold coins spinning and ka-chingin' as you make Mario jump.
10- "Natural Anthem" - A fierce, drum 'n bass-influenced track in the style of Aphex and other IDM'ers. The junglist in me loves this. A great way to end this five-star album.

But you'll find your own favorites. Every track was just so satisfyingly good, I nearly cried at the end. You just don't hear people making music like this nowadays.

Junkmedia.org Review- Such Great Heights
Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello and Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard knew they were on to something good as soon as they finished collaborating on the track "(This is) the Dream of Evan and Chan." That compelling combination of Tamborello's melodic knob-twiddling and Gibbard's literate vocals and forlorn delivery was the triumph of Dntel's acclaimed 2001 release Life Is Full of Possibilities. Not long after that first collaboration, The Postal Service was born. The relative strangers began recording in December 2001, swapping tracks on CD-Rs through the mail.

Listening to the act's debut brings back the same sort of giddiness inspired in me by New Order's Low Life when I first picked it up a decade-and-a-half ago. The Postal Service expertly channels that adolescent spirit with an awkward blend of dance beats and melodic songwriting. However, the duo has updated the sound for the millennial set, pleasantly mixing Depeche Mode beats and bass lines, Pet Shop Boys melodies and Warp Records-styled twinkling tones and clicks. Orchestral samples and pseudo horns add an unusual flavor to "Clark Gable." Chunky, monophonic Casio-sounding keys tie the vocals to the beat in "Nothing Better."

Two of the album's highlights appear right at the front end of the record. The first song, "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight," leads with brooding organ, before beats saunter in and steadily cruise through the first verse and chorus to a clean, ringing guitar riff. A second chorus pumps even harder and defies you to not sing along. This despite a characteristically bumming realization repeated by Gibbard: "I am finally seeing why I was the one worth leaving" (Christ, Benny, just stick a fork through my heart, why don't you?). Track two, "Such Great Heights," has already been released as a single. The catchy number apes Rod Stewart's "Young Turks," especially the beat and understated arrangement, albeit in an electro fashion.

The remainder of Give Up is solid, though Gibbard's lyrics are less potent by the middle of the record, and Tamborello burrows perhaps a little too deeply into some of the thinner sounds of the cold '80s era that inspires him. "Sleeping In" stumbles a bit with Gibbard's trite invocation of the JFK assassination, but the murmured chorus, "Don't wake me, I plan on sleeping in," that drapes over a quiet acoustic guitar phrase is strong enough to carry the entire song.

Perhaps the only shortcoming of Give Up is that the adherence to pop shuts out some of the more interesting electronic elements explored on Life Is Full of Possibilities. "Natural Anthem" is probably the most adventurous Postal Service tune, utilizing a relatively heavy break-beat, a looping string sample and more aggressive production, but clearly the duo's strengths are geared more toward hit-making than trailblazing. So, while the record isn't necessarily an instant classic, the unabashed embrace of simple pop sensibilities, both old and new, make it a record that is hard to stop listening to.

Jay Breitling
Junkmedia.org Review

Crossbred electropop
Existing somewhere between the musical and lyrical quirkiness of Komeda or Chumbawamba and the trip-hop funkadelic stylings of Massive Attack, you'll find The Postal Service. Perhaps this cross-breeding equals an original beast; though it is, in the very least, a melodical and rhythmic experience that you will enjoy. It might not fatten up your top ten list, but I think you'll find that The Postal Service delivers!