Death Cab For Cutie’s fourth album, Transatlanticism, is a shot to the heart of every motion-driven, slack-loving twentysomething. Its obsession with a need for movement and the intelligent turn-of-phrase elevates the album to a sparsely populated level of down-tempo indie rock.

The Badger Herald recently called bass player Nick Harmer to see how the band’s tour is going and ask about the album. What better way to discuss an album fixated on the limitations of distance then by a phone call from Wisconsin to California?

Death Cab played San Francisco’s Filmore last night with Nada Surf, and now the group is in Eureka, which Nick described as a sleepy little coastal town somewhere between San Francisco and Eugene.

“The life that we are living right now is kind of a strange one,” he said. “We’re always in motion, and it requires us to be away from things more than we are at home with things. One of the things that Ben (Gibbard, the group’s vocalist) was trying to touch on thematically on the record is how our lifestyles have affected our abilities to maintain relationships, whether they be friendships or romantic. Just relationships in general. There are a lot of themes of actual spatial distance, but there’s another version of distance — how you could be sitting next to somebody and still feel like you’re across the ocean from them.”

These themes become apparent with many of Gibbard’s lyrics. On the distantly narrated opener, “The New Year,” the band melts together supporting the verse, “I wish the world was flat like the old days; then I could travel just by folding a map / No more airplanes or speedtrains or freeways / There’d be no distance that can hold us back.” I asked Nick about the minimal instrumentation and relaxed sound of Transatlanticism.

“There is a somber quality to our music that has been there since day one. But maybe we’re finding ourselves at an introspective point in our lives right now. Especially as you get older, you’re asking more questions than you’re answering. Your opinions aren’t so steadfast as you begin to see the grey area,” he said.

“There are always a few years where everything feels a little unsettled. There are some folks in the world that know exactly what they’re going to do and just go do it. But there are a large percentage of us that sort of drift and wander, searching for something for a while before we actually settle down. That’s just the process of maturation, the process of growing up and navigating through the world.”

I asked about the band’s fanbase — if people in similar positions, at the same point in their lives, are grabbing on to the music.

“I think we strike chords with people who are in similar places of their lives regardless of age,” he said. “You can feel just as conflicted about things in a family where your parents choose to move around a lot. Or maybe you’re older and things are unsettled again.

“But being a more or less underground band, a band that isn’t on the pop-culture radar 100 percent yet, that the very nature of people who discover our band are people who are young and actively looking through magazines and the Internet for music and forms of expression that they connect with. I don’t know if that’s a function of our music or just a function of youth culture in general.”

We discussed the “pop-culture radar” and how Death Cab feels about its increasing following and exposure.

Nick quoted a friend of the band, the genre-defying electro rocker, Cex: “He said one of the best things ever, ‘Why would I want to make a record that I wanted only 2,000 people to hear?’ Why even go down that path if you didn’t want as many people to have access to it as possible? We are all very thankful that people are starting to find out about us and that our audience is growing.”

Things have changed. The band is playing bigger venues and has altered its lineup with a new drummer, Jason McGerr (who is described by Death Cab guitarist Chris Walla on the band’s website as having “a peaceful baby blue aura about him, and he’s the emotional and musical glue that we needed to continue being a band. You will love him as we do.”).

So how does Transatlanticism measure up to previous efforts? “I’m sure if you talk to any musician they’ll tell you their new record is the favorite, and I’m no exception. I love it. Very proud of it,” Nick said.

“I had the most fun and just the most inspiring time making this record than any of the records we’ve made. I’ve always had a good time, but we really tapped into some new areas of ourselves creatively and personally that we hadn’t even realized existed. And a lot of that came with the new drummer, Jason McGerr, and with the musical growth we’ve been doing on the side.”

And side projects have become a large part of Death Cab’s life. Vocalist and guitar player Ben Gibbard has found his side projects, a solo split with Andrew Kenny (of American Analog Set) and especially with his indie-dance mouthpiece, The Postal Service, receiving critical ovation. How has it affected Death Cab For Cutie?

“In all positive ways. We’ve had a mantra from the beginning that this band is our primary focus and goal, and it’s our primary source of energy and output. But we’re all very much free to explore other musical territory when we want to and when we need to. And it ultimately filters back into Death Cab in very good ways. It keeps us active and makes for a really dynamic atmosphere that we all feed off of,” Nick said.

What other than side projects has been influencing the band?

According to Nick, “We are four individuals that have a very diverse musical catalog. We all love Peter Gabriel, the Cure, Depeche Mode, the new Outkast record. One thing that I really love about this band is that we are all very much music fans. There’s such a great dialogue around music in general — it’s phenomenal. We’ve also been watching a lot of live DVDs: “Queen Live at Wembley Stadium,” the Cure’s “Trilogy,” “Rush Live in Rio,” and lots of old Pavement stuff.”

Nick told me that he is not the songwriting type, so I asked what his dream cover band would play. He replied, “We would have to play Master of Puppets and AC/DC’s Back in Black straight through. We would also play Low’s The Curtain Hits the Cast from start to finish and then do our best to represent Brian Eno and Godspeed You Black Emperor! as well. It would be a very bi-polar show.”

But one definitely worth seeing. Death Cab For Cutie will end its tour in a few days with a three-night stand in its hometown of Seattle.

Transatlanticism is Death Cab For Cutie’s latest album, and is available now.