Music crash course: Chris Walla

Day job

Listeners of Walla’s solo album, “Field Manual,” will surely notice that much of it sounds as if it could fit comfortably into the Death Cab for Cutie canon.

As with Death Cab’s more recent work, there’s a cleanliness to Walla’s power-pop, a pristine sort-of production that keeps the affair from ever truly cutting loose. It’s full of slick and proper, well-constructed, mid-tempo tunes, with songs like “Sing Again” and “Geometry &C” building to spotless choruses.

But oddly enough, these were not songs Walla ever presented to his bandmates in Death Cab. That band, he said, is strictly the province of Ben Gibbard.

“I’m not the writer nor am I the singer in the band,” Walla said. “Nor do I have any desire to be. That’s not what I do. It’s Ben’s territory. It’s not a two-songwriter band, and it never will be. I would dread trying, honestly, and it would have already happened if that’s how it’s going to work in this band. That said, I’ve definitely presented musical ideas at different points. They’re always well-received, but not always used.”