Claude says:John Congleton produced this at Animal Rites in LA over three weeks, the band working as a live five-piece — and the heavier rock sound shows it. Ben Gibbard wrote these songs while processing his divorce and touring the 20th anniversaries of Transatlanticism and Plans, threading grief through the album's central metaphor: emotions as towers you build to contain what might otherwise spill over. You picked it up the month it came out and spent June with it — "Envy the Birds" and "Full of Stars" hit hardest.