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Oct 13, 2021 By Joey Arnone

Death Cab For Cutie have announced a reissue of their 2001 third studio album, The Photo Album, in honor of its 20th anniversary. The 35-track reissue will feature a remastered version of the original album, along with unreleased tracks, rarities, UK b-sides, and covers of Björk’s “All is Full of Love” and The Stone Roses’ “I Wanna Be Adored.” In addition to the announcement, the band shared a previously unreleased demo for their song “Coney Island.” The reissue will be out digitally on October 29 via Barsuk, and will be released on vinyl in spring 2022. Listen to “Coney Island” and view the reissue tracklist below.

Frontman Ben Gibbard describes the new song in a press release as originally being “a Neil Young-stomp kind of thing” before then-band member Chris Walla completely changed it up. Gibbard adds: “It’s very indicative of the process we were employing at that point, which was to deconstruct something and build it completely back up. In that particular case, it made the song a lot more interesting and gave it a nice flavor and a loneliness that sits well on the album.”

Though the band has had mixed feelings toward The Photo Album over the years, Walla states that “revisiting our actual work for this reissue has decidedly unmixed those feelings. I think The Photo Album is pretty excellent. The demos are especially satisfying to me—they were recorded live to the 8-track over the course of a few days just a week before we started the album proper, and they are a beautiful, buzzing, remarkably confident set of test Polaroids for what the album would become.”

Gibbard adds: “What that period gave us was the opportunity to push it all the way to the edge, personally and creatively, and go, OK, wait a second, this is important to us. We are friends. This is worth saving. This is worth continuing to do. That really opened up the creative playfield that would become our next album, Transatlanticism. We finally recognized that we love doing this—we just needed a break once in a while.”

Last year, the band shared two music projects via Bandcamp: The Georgia E.P. and the live album Live at the Showbox.

The Photo Album 20th Anniversary Reissue Tracklist:

The Photo Album

1. Steadier Footing
2. A Movie Script Ending
3. We Laugh Indoors
4. Information Travels Faster
5. Why You’d Want To Live Here
6. Blacking Out The Friction
7. I Was A Kaleidoscope
8. Styrofoam Plates
9. Coney Island
10. Debate Exposes Doubt

The Stability E.P.

11. 20th Century Towers
12. All Is Full Of Love
13. Stability

Rarities & Unreleased Recordings

14. Gridlock Caravans
15. Information Travels Faster (Alternate Lyric Demo)
16. I Wanna Be Adored (Live)
17. I Was A Kaleidoscope (Live)
18. We Laugh Indoors (Dub)
19. Debate Exposes Doubt (Acoustic)
20. A Movie Script Ending (Acoustic)
21. I Was A Kaleidoscope (Acoustic, Live on KEXP)
22. Corny Island (Studio Outtake)
23. We Laugh Indoors (UK Single Mix)

Band Demos

24. Steadier Footing (Acoustic Studio Outtake)
25. A Movie Script Ending (Band Demo)
26. We Laugh Indoors (Band Demo)
27. Information Travels Faster (Band Demo)
28. Why You’d Want To Live Here (Band Demo)
29. Blacking Out The Friction (Band Demo)
30. I Was A Kaleidoscope (Band Demo)
31. Styrofoam Plates (Band Demo)
32. Coney Island (Band Demo)
33. Debate Exposes Doubt (Band Demo)
34. 20th Century Towers (Band Demo)
35. Stable Song (Band Demo)

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