“Whose alarm is it?” a friend asked on a recent trip to a spa town. We were having dinner after a long drive, the stereo was blasting some music, and she asked again. “An alarm is off, check your phones”. “It’s the song” another friend replied.

I sipped from my cup silently. They were both right.

Soul meets body is an urgent song. “‘Cuz in my head there’s a greyhound station where I send my thoughts to far-off destinations”. How many times I wished I could just do that. Quoting someone else “thoughts arrive like butterflies” and I wish I could chase them away, Mr. Vedder.

Death Cab for Cutie can be mushy. The vocals, the musical arrangement, the overall message. But they are also extremely heartfelt, with their feelings on their sleeves, never shying away to let uncomfortable truths pierce through. Damage multiplier by four.

I bought Plans, their fifth album, a couple of days after it was released. It was through a recommendation from Pop Candy’s USA Today column that I found about them, just around the same time I found Rilo Kiley thanks to the same column. Plans was there when I started a relationship that seemed great in its first year, but went south after the first anniversary. What’s all that about?

Whenever we had an argument or just went out for the sakes of going out and not being alone, the intro from the song popped. “We had plans” I thought several times, and they’ll never come to fruition. You live, you learn.

Soul meets body is the warning sound. A disaster was upon us. Summer skin, the very next track, defined perfectly that feeling of the recent post break up emotions. Well played, Death Cab for Cutie.

-Sam J. Valdés López