Death Cab for Cutie might have made it to a point where they'd be fine without the assistance of utility player/producer Chris Walla, but the band wouldn't likely be what it is today without his help. Not that some other producer couldn't help shape Ben Gibbard's songs and the band's performances into their just-mysterious-enough but still easy-on-the-ears albums. But Walla seems to be the perfect fit.
No question, the guy knows how to make an album. One of Walla's greatest talents is his ability to step out of the way, allowing the attributes of whomever he's working with to shine through while still putting his sonic stamp on things. Maybe that's why Walla doesn't seem like the type to stew on the sidelines, or complain that his voice isn't being heard, and why anyone expecting Walla's solo album, Field Manual, to unleash some kind of pent-up ego is bound to be disappointed. Beyond the opening track "Two Fifty"-- an arty wisp that suggests the disc could have been the showy (though not flashy) producer's album some expected-- the most remarkable thing about Field Manual is how generally unremarkable the long-simmering project turns out to be.
Freed from his work-for-hire commitments, Walla has made an album in line with... all his previous endeavors. In fact, with a new Death Cab album already in the pipes, it's hard to know what might have prompted Walla to push this impeccably crafted but insignificant detour through to completion. And why now? Just about every track on Field Manual would fit comfortably somewhere in Death Cab for Cutie's catalog, and Walla's singing voice even turns out to be cut from the same cloth as Ben Gibbard's.
If anything, Walla's a little easier to take than Gibbard, free of some of his bandmate's more twee affectations. What hurts Walla, though, is that on Field Manual, he's hardly whispering sweet poetic nothings. Instead, as promised, there's an explicitly political undercurrent to the disc, and on paper Walla is pissed. As he sings in "Sing Again": "No, this is not a test/ Let's sing again/ Sing together without disguise/ Let's raise up a song in unrest."
But the track sends a milder message, as its unconvincing mid-tempo pace, bittersweet melody, and Walla's gentle delivery hardly adds up to an anthemic rallying cry. The same holds true for the vaguely Big Star-esque (or Matthew Sweet-esque, or Pernice Brothers-esque) "Everybody On", a ballad that could be about the immigration debate. Elsewhere, he addresses the Hurricane Katrina aftermath with typically soft-spoken emo earnestness-- an oddly dissonant approach.
The sensitive act is a better fit for songs like "Geometry &C", a pretty conventional alt-rocker, and the romantic ruminations of "Our Plans, Collapsing", whose pessimism is subversively paired with some of the album's most grown-up hooks. Sure, there's some muscle backing up "Archer V. Light" and "The Score"-- where finally some actual big riffing supports a bring-home-the-troops missive. Too often, though, Walla takes the easy way out. Obviously, a host of issues-- from downtime to headlines-- compelled Walla to make this record, and his effort shows. What's missing is a compelling reason to listen.
