The Paramount Theatre in Seattle was filled to sweating capacity one winter evening in 2005, all the seats and floor space having been taken over by fans of Death Cab for Cutie who were looking to welcome back their hometown heroes. The band was just ending the first leg of their tour in support of Plans, the album that turned the four young men from the best indie-rock band around into one of the best rock bands working today. By the end of the band’s nine months on the road, they would sell almost a million copies of the album, thanks in no small part to the chiming, radio-friendly single “Soul Meets Body.”

If anything is clear on Field Manual, the debut solo album from indie rocker/producer Chris Walla, it’s that Death Cab for Cutie is not just “Ben Gibbard’s band.” Moments of Field Manual feel as if Walla simply resurrected lost tracks from some old Death Cab record, which, in turn, actually offers testament to the great influence the band’s guitarist brings to their quietly powerful sound. Songs like “Everyone Needs a Home” and “Sing Again” are slated to fit right into the next Zach Braff movie, revealing Walla’s Gibbard-like vocal style of hushed sentimentality. The sentiment is exactly the same here as it is on Death Cab’s Transatlanticism or Plans; it’s gentle and lovelorn.

Few things in the world rival the power and uniqueness of music. It has been around since the earliest humans and is found in every single culture in the world. It is agreed that music can alter moods, communicate any imaginable thing and literally change the world. But one thing people have continually debated is how much the message or experience of music can be affected by the way a person hears or experiences it. For example, how different is a song heard live in concert than when heard on CD? How are our experiences and understandings of music changed by different mediums? Read More