Death Cab For Cutie have just unveiled their latest single, with ‘Kids In ’99’ set to be released on their upcoming EP.
Back in 1999, Death Cab For Cutie were a band who were slowly on the rise. Having released their debut album, Something About Airplanes, the previous year, Ben Gibbard was taking some time touring, writing, and even recording for his other side project, ¡All-Time Quarterback!.
However, just weeks after ¡All-Time Quarterback! finished recording The Envelope Sessions, Gibbard’s hometown of Bellingham, Washington was struck by tragedy when three young people died in the Olympic Pipeline explosion.
Now, more than two decades on, the incident has been immortalised in music, with Death Cab For Cutie dedicating the appropriately-titled ‘Kids In ’99’ to the three victims.
“The Olympic Pipeline explosion in 1999 was a tragedy that really affected me while we were living in Bellingham,” Ben Gibbard explained in a statement. “After all these years I felt it was worthy of its own folk song.”
A reflective track held down by rolling drumbeats, somber guitarlines, and Gibbard’s repeated refrain of “gone, gone“, the song is clearly an emotive one for the band.
Produced by Peter Katis (Kurt Vile, The National), the track is the lead single from Death Cab For Cutie’s upcoming The Blue EP. A five-track release set to drop on September 6th, the EP comes just one year on from the band’s ninth studio album, Thank You For Today. Pre-orders for the new EP are available now.
In related news, Ben Gibbard recently made a guest appearance on ‘Do You Remember’, the second track from Chance The Rapper’s recently-released debut, The Big Day.
Check out ‘Kids In ’99’ by Death Cab For Cutie:
Death Cab For Cutie’s The Blue EP tracklist
1. ‘To The Ground’
2. ‘Kids In ’99’
3. ‘Man In Blue’
4. ‘Before The Bombs’
5. ‘Blue Bloods’
