It seems like I’ve been listening to Built to Spill for ever. I remember rocking out to “Center of the Universe” back in high school. And I remember getting to college and discovering just how ridiculously good their two previous albums were. I still think there are few songs out there that can match the grandeur, the beauty, or the sheer presence of “Untrustable” (I mean, I can probably list on my fingers the number of songs that can boast a line as succinct and brilliant as “God is whoever you’re performing for” – and then you combine that with 9 minutes of swirling guitar virtuosity). And to think that the same band that gave us Perfect From Now On was also responsible for There’s Nothing Wrong With Love…well, wow.
For me, those two records are the peak. I enjoyed Keep It Like a Secret a lot, but it felt like a slightly less sharp re-tread of what they had already offered.
This decade, they released a couple more albums, each with some fine moments (“The Weather” in particular may be their prettiest composition) but on the whole feeling rather drab and uninspired. Doug Martsch also had a nice but not spectacular solo record that featured a few nicely countrified little melodies but didn’t leave much of a mark. Based on that work, you could only assume that they had reached a comfortable middle age: spinning out a new disc every three years, not concerned about deviating too much from the treads they had established.
So I wasn’t expecting too much when I first put on There Is No Enemy. But that’s what you get for making assumptions. It works over the same terrain, to be sure, but for the first time in a decade you can really sense the scope of it all. Gone are the senseless meanderings. In their place: a bite in the guitar and a pointedness in the lyrics that play off each other to produce something sharp and beautiful
Just a few examples:
“Finally decided, and by decide I mean accept / I don’t need all those, other chances I won’t get” (Life’s a Dream)
“We’ve all seen enough now it’s time to decide, the meekness of love or the power of pride / It doesn’t matter if you’re good or smart, goddamn it, things fall apart” (Things Fall Apart)
“The first place my mind goes is where I never want it to / like where it hurts the most or all the stupid shit I say and do / You can make it if you try / And if you don’t it’s gonna still be alright” (Planting Seeds)
Try and imagine any of those on a previous Built to Spill record. They betray a deep sense of loss that offers a purpose to the instrumentation. Which is to say: the guitar work is as clever and well-constructed as usual, but this time around it carries more significance. The percussion is far more insistent, driving than in their past work. It’s not as sparse and thumping as in their 3-minute pop days, remaining far more subtle, but it’s a force of nature that demands movement. The guitars don’t float on the surface anymore; now they’re caught in the midst of the current struggling to breathe.
The result is a record that cuts in a way that feels more like 90s era Modest Mouse than it does Built to Spill. It’s beautiful, and if you’re not paying attention you pull it close, only to realize how deeply you’ve been scored.
Opener “Aisle 13” hints at all of this, but without revealing all. In some ways, it could fit into ANY Built to Spill record. It’s got the pace and energy for their early stuff. It would also nicely fit in the midst of “Sidewalk” or “The Plan.” And it exercises the sense of restraint of their later stuff. And in some sense, that’s the new element that it heralds. Here, in one three-minute song, lies the essence of the band. For me at least, about two minutes in I finally am able to wrap my mind around the guitar riff that drives the song – discovering that it perfectly matches my own internal rhythm. Or is it that I’ve put myself in tune with the song?
That question is answered, resoundingly, by the following track. “Hindsight” may well be my favorite Built to Spill song – and that’s saying something. It doesn’t have the stateliness of “Untrustable,” or its gentle forcefulness, but it does have an almost preternatural capacity to MOVE me. And it’s all in that guitar. These guys have always been wizards with the instrument, but this record is the first time they’ve been able to communicate empathy, pathos, the passion of a living soul. It’s visceral.
Tracks three and four provide two further angles. “Nowhere Lullaby” dials things down, offering almost a pure ballad, perhaps as a respite to the sense conveyed in those first two tracks that something was at risk of going off the rails. “Good ‘Ol Boredom” is probably the most clear throwback to the late 90s version of the band. It chugs along, reminding you that while things may change, they’re still really the same.
With those four tracks, they set out the terms of the record. But it’s with the fifth one that they reveal just how far in they want to take us. “Life’s a Dream” is every bit as pure as “Nowhere Lullaby” but it also shares a sort of passionate luminosity with “Hindsight.” The guitar interlude is a slow burn, and it sets the stage for the lines referenced above (“finally decided, and by decide I mean accept”), which ache with a deep weariness. They reveal a soul battered by time, carrying on without a sense of purpose, and yet still carrying on.
Things drop off a bit after that, with “Oh Yeah” and “Done” failing to progress much beyond the loose jam attitude that characterizes their weaker work. However, they bookend “Pat” which, once again, tears apart your assumptions. It’s fast, ragged, and absolutely heartrending. It’s completely opposite in tone, style, and just about everything else – but the only song I can think to compare it to is “Twin Falls,” just because of the sense of presence that it offers. If the biggest weakness of all previous BTS records was the ever-present gap that couldn’t be erased between singer and song, the line is once and for all torn apart on “Pat.” There is no ironic distance here, no vague ruminations on the world as such. This time there’s only the here and now, and a deep pain about the fact that we can’t ever go back.
If the opening five tracks established the framework for the record and “Pat” is in some sense the culmination, then the final three tracks constitute the reprise and denouement. “Planting Seeds” kicks things off by returning to the resolute percussion of the opening two tracks, building a beautiful pop song out of the very simple relation between those drums and some of their more subtle guitar work. It’s then followed by “Things Fall Apart” which reminds us of the depths that we discovered in “Life’s a Dream.” The power of the song is not in what it tells us, but in what it leaves unanswered. Is there a reason for all of this? Do we believe in things because they’re right, or just because we’d go mad if we didn’t latch onto something? Are we doomed to endlessly wander through the hallways of our own minds or is there some kind of connection, a true one, not mere seeming?
And finally, there’s “Tomorrow.” It’s a fitting capstone to a record that’s bleak but powerful. It sweeps and glides with the very best of their jams, driven by a steadfast will that will not be dissuaded, even if the power of entropy itself be aligned against it. It’s humble, unsure, incapable of offering anything solid to ground us, and yet the one thing you can be sure of is that it will not succumb to hopelessness. He sings: “I try to forget but my memory won’t fail me now” and the guitars wash over you. Like the whole record, it’s a fundamentally fragile structure of pain and loss that somehow sustains itself through the simple fact of its own existence.
Hindsight – Built to Spill
Life’s a Dream – Built to Spill