Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Death Cab For Cutie, Bandcamp 2020.
American alternative rock outfit Death Cab For Cutie released this fundraiser EP for Fair Fight Action (FFA), a not for profit group who aim for fair voting rights in the US.
Its release coincided with the Georgia senate runoff elections and off course we know that the Democrats won enough seats to take the state of Georgia for the first time in many years.
The band raised over $100,000 for FFA and dedicated the EP to Stacey Adams and her hard working team. The EP consists of five tracks, all of them covers.
Track one is a cover of TLC’s Waterfalls and Death Cab For Cutie have brought their own interpretation to it.
It starts with an unusual vamped guitar that underlies the track. As the song unfolds the sound becomes monumental.
The second track is a cover of Neutral Milk Hotel’s King Of Carrot Flowers Pt 1.
This is a band that I’ve never heard of before but now that I have I’ll need to explore some more, songwriter Jeff Mangum writes songs that are quite surreal and psychedelic.
Track three is the REM song Fall On Me, what can I say, one of my favourite REM songs done by Death Cab For Cutie.
Track four is a cover of a Vic Chesnutt song Flirted With You All My Life, once again the song and artist are new to me but I’ve discovered that Vic was an American singer/songwriter from Georgia who died at 45 years of age on Christmas Day 2009 (apparently from an overdose).
The song is not a love song but about Vic’s own relationship with the Grim Reaper.
The closing track is by Cat Power, Metal Heart from her Moon Pix album. It’s one of my favourite tracks and Death Cab For Cutie once again reinterpret the original to give it their own slant.
I’m mostly a bit wary of bands releasing covers, mainly because most artists feel that they have to show too much due reverence to the originals.
They say that slavishly copying something is the highest form of flattery but I argue that it’s mostly just laziness and that true reverence is when you use the original as a starting point for a new work.
Death Cab For Cutie definitely fall into the second of these categories.
The Georgia EP is a good CD produced for a worthy cause. The fundraiser is now closed but you can still buy the CD.