Ben Gibbard is pretending his new LP does not reference his split from Zooey Deschanel, that it’s eight years’ worth of stray songs—and it does have that feel, with its mish-mash of styles ranging from a cappella to mariachi—but who else could he be singing “I just want you to understand/That love is only a type of greed/Of equal portions, want and need/And you cannot divorce the two” to? Regardless, Former Lives finds the middle ground between his home-recorded All Time Quarterback material and Plans-era Death Cab, making it a pleasant but inessential addition to Gibbard’s impressive catalogue.
This article appears in Nov 8-14, 2012.
