Built
to Spill ‘You in Reverse’ worth
long wait
By Emily Savage
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
Those who love Built to Spill, the Idaho indie rock group formed in 1992, have
been waiting a long time for some new music.
Five years to be exact. The band’s last album, a somewhat lackluster “Ancient
Melodies,” was released in 2001 and until 2005, Built to Spill had given
no clues or signs as to whether it would record any new music or even play together
again.
In 2005 Built to Spill let it be known it was back and ready to impress, with
a new album titled “You in Reverse.”
Built to Spill is the brainchild of Doug Martsch, formerly of Treepeople. Martsch
envisioned Built to Spill as a group with an ever-changing line-up of musicians
and instruments. Until the most recent album, Built to Spill was just that, with
Martsch the obvious star and with other musicians backing up his signature sound.
With “You in Reverse” Martsch, along with Scott Plouf, Brett Nelson
and Jim Roth, created something different, yet familiar.
The Built to Spill sound had been compared to like-minded indie groups like Dinosaur
Jr., Pavement and the Pixies.
Recently, the sounds of groups like Modest Mouse have been compared to Built
to Spill’s dreamy guitar and Martsch’s haunting vocals.
“
You in Reverse,” presents the new Built to Spill, five years older,
more exuberant and with more variety of sound. The songs vary from the
sweet and beautiful “The Wait” to the fast and fun, eight-minute
jam “Goin’ Against Your Mind.” The band obviously worked
hard on this album. The guitar parts are interesting and seem to flow
at a natural pace. While the band has always had interesting guitar,
it loosened its grip on perfectly timed numbers and allowed themselves
to have seemingly never-ending guitar parts.
According to Built to Spill’s MySpace page, “The band wanted to retain
the impromptu, organic feel of their jams.” Unlike other albums, the new
one is a tight group effort with each musician putting in his ideas and unique
sounds. “The group tried to capture loose and live moments, letting each
individual musician’s talents be more accurately represented,” the
band’s bio said.
Songs on the new album like “Gone,” have an eerie folk sound, while
songs like “Conventional Wisdom” pick up the spastic energy from
the intro track. The stand-out star of the album is “Liar,” a dreamy,
heartfelt piece that could quite possibly become a classic for the band.
In Billboard last year Martsch explained his idea for the new album, “We
just wanted to try something new to spark us to do something different,” he
said. Built to Spill seems to have collaboratively achieved his goal. “You
in Reverse” keeps a steady, somewhat upbeat pace and happily strays from
the last album, which was a more droll and exhaustive record.
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