Emo music is good for those times when, even though you’re a man, you just want to let out some manly tears. While most men of our generation would only admit to listening to Nine Inch Nails when they’re depressed, there are those unique guys smart enough to realize that impressing some eyebrow pierced girl with your knowledge of post-punk can really help the healing process as well. And the songs from the likes of Death Cab for Cutie, the Get Up Kids, and even Dashboard Confessional aren’t all that damn bad. And the debut album from The Postal Service, Give Up, isn’t that damn bad either.

The Postal Service is made up of Benjamin Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie; yes you did recognize that voice) and Jimmy Tamborello. I have little knowledge of this Tamborello guy but the programming prowess he shows on this album rivals that of Daft Punk.
The album is a bizarre, yet blissfully simple, concept of making emo pop songs with synthesizers and drum machines rather than guitar and live drums. I brought up Daft Punk before because the techno on this album is employed more as an effective means to present a catchy pop song than as a way to get a bunch of ecstasy dropping ravers twirling glowsticks in an abandoned warehouse. Not to say this shit wont make you dance.

If you choose to shake your ass to the second track (“Such Great Heights”) you might find yourself feeling like a member of the Breakfast Club. The 80’s pop feel of this track is undeniable; flashbacks of the Aha video ran through my brain upon first listening. This is *not* a bad thing, believe me. Another track with a similar vein to “Such Great Heights” would be the second to last song “Brand New Colony”. This song finds Gibbard making promises to his current love that he will be “your winter coat buttoned and zipped straight to the throat with the collar up so you won’t catch cold”.

This lyric is only one example of the straightforward heart-on-your-sleeve words that Gibbard sings on the album. Unlike on Death Cab for Cutie’s “The Photo Album”, where all the songs were pictures of different events in time, “Give Up” is generally an album about different emotional states. And of course, love is a prime theme. One gets the feeling that the singer has lost a love he once had.

“Give Up” is a break up album with some side stories thrown in for good measure. The song “Nothing Better” is the most obvious example of this. Gibbard sings to his would-be ex that he admits “that I have made mistakes and I swear I’ll never wrong you again”. His soon to be ex, as sung by the angelic Jen Wood, responds “you’ve got a lure I can’t deny, but you’ve had your chance so say goodbye”. It’s easy to identify with; we’ve all been through it.

“The District Sleeps Tonight” would be an example of a song about that period after a breakup where you still have to see your ex on occasion. Or even worse, you have to see the shit stain he/she is dating now. Gibbard admits that “I am finally seeing why I was the one worth leaving” when he meets the new beau. It’s a realization that sucks, believe me, but it happens.
Some of the side stories on the album are “We Will Become Silhouettes” (a song about our bodies becoming souls, or silhouettes, when we die), “This Place is a Prison” (a song about a hedonist coming to grips with constant parties and debauchery), and “Recycled Air”. “Recycled Air” is an ambient song where one gets the feeling of flight with the layers of synths Tamborello programs in the song. A breakbeat drives the song while Gibbard describes farms that pass off into the distance. Even though it’s a beautiful and natural idea, the perfection of the situation is still tainted by “the stale taste of recycled air”. This pointed observation is more likely to be found on a Radiohead album but it’s pulled off here with a heartfelt sincerity that Thom Yorke shows little sign of lately.

So why buy this album? First off you have to admit to yourself that you have regrets about past relationships. Stop popping in Limp Biscuit when you break up and doing a Durst impression about how much of a bitch your ex is. She wasn’t a bitch. If she was you wouldn’t have dated her. Instead listen to “Give Up” and realize that the shit that goes wrong in your life is as much your own fault as anyone else’s. The Postal Service’s debut album will help you feel pity for yourself about bad choices but will also pick you up the end with a few hopeful words and some grooving beats. Just don’t let your frat brothers find out you listen to pussy music or they might haze you again.