Kintsugi, which follows 2011’s GRAMMY® Award-nominated Codes and Keys – marks Death Cab for Cutie’s first new album since the departure last year of founding guitarist/keyboardist/producer Chris Walla. Recorded in Los Angeles with Rich Costey (Franz Ferdinand, Muse, Interpol) behind the board, the album takes its title from the Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics with precious metals like gold, silver, and platinum, highlighting cracks rather than hiding them. As such, Kintsugi represents a compassionate aesthetic philosophy in which damage and wear are embraced as part of an object’s history.

“Considering what we were going through internally, and with what a lot of the lyrics are about, it had a great deal of resonance for us – the idea of figuring out how to repair breaks and make them a thing of beauty,” says bassist Nick Harmer, who suggested the name to singer/guitarist Ben Gibbard and drummer Jason McGerr. “Philosophically, spiritually, emotionally, it seems perfect for this group of songs.”

For nearly two decades, Death Cab for Cutie has been hailed as one of contemporary music’s most compelling and creative collectives. Born in Bellingham, Washington in 1997, the band followed a long relationship with the Seattle-based independent label, Barsuk, by making their Atlantic Records debut with their fifth studio release, 2005’s Plans. The album proved Death Cab for Cutie’s popular breakthrough, the chart-topping singles, Soul Meets Body and I Will Follow You Into The Dark. The latter track was honoured with a GRAMMY® nomination as “Best Pop Performance By Duo Or Group With Vocals,” with Plans receiving the nod as “Best Alternative Album.” Directions, the 2006 DVD companion to Plans, earned an additional GRAMMY® nod as “Best Longform Music Video.”