A strange and beautiful thing happens on this reissue's bonus live disc. During the first song of their maiden Seattle show, in 1998, Death Cab play "Your Bruise" with the melancholy precision that later became their hallmark. Not every cut on their debut is that assured: Guitarist-producer Chris Walla hadn't yet mastered the studio, and singer Ben Gibbard's articulate moodiness isn't consistently memorable. But on the lovely, cello-adorned "Bend to Squares," the band creeps along with deliberation, like children trying not to leave footprints in icy snow.

“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”