Death Cab for Cutie Share New Single ‘Punching the Flowers’

The track is the second release taken from Death Cab for Cutie’s upcoming eleventh studio album, I Built You A Tower.

Image Shervin Lainez

Four years on since their last album, Death Cab for Cutie have announced their much anticipated eleventh record, I Built You A Tower, is dropping Friday 5 June via ANTI- Records.

Following the record’s first single, ‘Riptides’, the band have shared ‘Punching the Flowers’, an angular guitar rocker based on a true story of a toddler throwing a tantrum and punching flowers outside a bodega, which acts as a metaphor for a person being trapped by something beautiful.

“‘Punching the Flowers’ is a song about stagnation and the feeling of being imprisoned by The Known. And about the damage done when someone ventures deeper into the unknown,” explains Gibbard.

I Built You A Tower is Death Cab’s first independent release in 20 years, with the band having recently left Atlantic Records. Produced and engineered by John Congleton (Lana del Ray, The Killers, Gossip), the album was written and recorded in three weeks at Animal Rites in Los Angeles, as well as the band members’ homes in Seattle, Bellingham, Los Angeles and Portland.

It came about during an interesting time for frontman Benjamin Gibbard, who was dealing with the collapse of his personal life while the band were touring the globe celebrating the 20th anniversaries of seminal releases Transatlanticism and Plans.

“There’s this need to find a place in ourselves to put loss and grief,” he explains about I Built You A Tower. “A place that can hold it so we can move on with our lives. But there are these moments where the trauma breaks out of that shell we created for it.”

READ MORE: Avenged Sevenfold Announces Australian and New Zealand Tour 2026

To coincide with the release of I Built You A Tower, Death Cab are returning to Australian shores for the first time in seven years. Gibbard, Nicholas Harmer, Jason McGerr, Dave Depper and Zac Rae have announced three special shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

The tour commences at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion on Thursday 12 November, followed by Margaret Court Arena in Melbourne on Friday 13 November and concluding at Brisbane’s Fortitude Music Hall on Sunday 15 November. Tickets on sale now via secretsounds.com.

Before touching down in Australia, Death Cab for Cutie is playing a heap of shows across the US in the lead up to the release of I Built You A Tower.

Catch Death Cab for Cutie performing in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane this November. Tickets on sale via secretsounds.com. I Built You A Tower is out Friday 5 June via ANTI- Records. Pre-order here and pre-save here. Listen to ‘Punching Flowers’ here.

Death Cab For Cutie I Built You a Tower Australian Tour 2026

Thursday 12 November – Hordern Pavilion, Sydney, NSW

Friday 13 November – Margaret Court Arena, Melbourne, VIC

Sunday 15 November – Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane, QLD

---