It‰’s that time of year again. The time for crazed festival fans to prepare themselves for the summer‰’s upcoming musical events. Finally, summer music festivals are releasing their lineups for 2014 and pumping up festival-goers across the country.

This past Tuesday, San Francisco‰’s annual Outside Lands Music Festival announced its lineup for summer, shocking its followers with an eclectic array of musical guests. With artists like Kanye West and Tiesto, to Arctic Monkeys and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Outside Lands has definitely outdone itself in terms of music variety.

If there‰’s one band that is worth seeing, over all others, it is definitely Death Cab For Cutie. Besides the fact that they are an extraordinarily talented band to begin with, Death Cab holds a special place in my heart, as they were the first band I ever listened to on a continuous basis. With the complete memorization of their eight full albums and numerous EP‰’s, I will be welcoming Death Cab for Cutie with open and eager arms this summer at Outside Lands.

Although all of their albums are incredible, in my opinion, Plans, released in 2005, reflects what Death Cab does best: incorporating masterfully crafted lyrics with indie alternative instrumentation. The first two songs of the album, “Marching Bands of Manhattan‰” and “Soul Meets Body‰Û, introduce the band‰’s heavy use of the in sync bass and drum beats that accompany often unique electric guitar melodies.

Perhaps my favorite characteristic of Death Cab, however, is its poetic, genius lyrics that never fail to evoke strong emotions and feelings within its listener. In the next three songs of the album, “Summer Skin‰Û, “Different Names for the Same Thing‰Û, and “I Will Follow You into the Dark‰Û, the lead singer, Ben Gibbard, demonstrates his incredible lyrical talent, shedding light on the difficulties of heartbreak, isolation, and falling in love.

Skipping to numbers nine and ten of Plans, we reach my two favorite songs: “What Sarah Said‰” and “Brothers on a Hotel Bed‰Û. For whatever reason, these two songs got me hooked onto Death Cab For Cutie and still leave me in a state of disbelief (in a good way of course) whenever I listen to them.

“What Sarah Said‰” is an incredibly heavy song, in terms of emotional connectivity, as it doesn‰’t sugar coat the realities of losing a loved one. Gibbard sings: “As I stared at my shoes/In the ICU/That reeked of piss and 409/And I rationed my breaths/As I said to myself/That I’d already taken too much today/As each descending peak/On the LCD/Took you a little farther away from me/Away from me‰Û.

In “Brothers on a Hotel Bed‰Û, Gibbard expresses the pain of growing apart from someone who you care about, saying: “In the city where we still reside. /And I have learned that even landlocked lovers yearn for the sea like navy men /Cause now we say goodnight from our own separate sides /Like brothers on a hotel bed‰Û.

Although the twelve year old me could not fully appreciate the meaning behind these songs, connecting to them through the vulnerability and rawness of Gibbard‰’s singing style was incredibly easy, making these songs as equally fulfilling and powerful.

Even if you can‰’t make it to Outside Lands this summer, check out Death Cab for Cutie, you won‰’t be disappointed!