Don’t blame Death Cab for Cutie for getting watered down over the past few years. They are pigeonholed by people like me. We think Death Cab is a group of whiney softies looking for the nearest college girl’s exposed navel.

When a label of Atlantic’s proportions is dangling itself in front of them, they ought to know what they’re in for. We all remember The Dandy Warhols.

At its best, “Plans,” Death Cab’s major label debut, sounds like a reasonably surefire pension plan. The album is definitely Death Cab and will probably make casual listeners happy. It will sell copies.

But on any other level, the album has little to offer. Lyrically, it is bad. It is the Hall and Oates of our generation. Lines like “You’ll be loved like you never have known” are hard to swallow.

In these moments, Death Cab is an empty masquerade of cliche collegiate romanticism. The band portrays love as something it isn’t. Real love is something Death Cab is too busy bitching about to ever know.