Death Cab for Cutie, Momma

With a knack for sensitive lyrics, memorable melodies and Ben Gibbard’s wistful vocals, bittersweet and grungy Death Cab for Cutie was a respectable progenitor of emo when ‘Transatlanticism’ catapulted the band to the big time in 2003. Since then, they may have come down commercially, but never creatively. Hell, even impossible-to-please Pitchfork called Death Cab’s masterful 2022 ‘Asphalt Meadows’ an album that “mostly satisfies.”