Death Cab for Cutie, that poster boy for sensitive indie pop, prove it has some balls behind all that pretty, "OC"-approved music with "Narrow Stairs." The follow-up to 2005's "Plans," the group's second Atlantic outing, is a welcome growth musically and thematically: The songs here hit with a full-on assault of crunching guitar riffs, distorted, cracked vocals and walls of disorienting feedback, while lyrically, frontman Ben Gibbard visits the moodier and darker corners of his mind. A lumbering bass lingers behind a stalker on the loose on the eight-minute "I Will Possess Your Heart," the guitars driving "Cath . . . " venture close to alt-country territory, and "Pity and Fear" grooves with a jungle-like beat. Fundamentally, it's still the Death Cab you know and love, now just a little rougher around the edges. —Jill Menze