Music Box | Built to Spill

Mike Newmark Assistant Arts Editor

Built to Spill
You in Reverse
[Warner Brothers/WEA]
4.5 out of 5 stars

Built to Spill is a band filled with oxymorons. They play insular indie rock that’s so big it could power the entire city of Los Angeles. Steven Malkmus and J Mascis—two of Built to Spill’s greatest influences—would probably spit on their long-running tenure at a major label.

Additionally, Built to Spill’s singer/songwriter/guitarist Doug Martsch wants to be both a pop frontman and a guitar virtuoso in an era when most musicians can’t have it both ways. Fortunately for Martsch—and the rest of us—You in Reverse finds Built to Spill striking that delicate balance, and stands as the greatest consolidation of guitar heroics and pop sensibilities that the band has created.

After seesawing between style and substance during the ’90s, Built to Spill found themselves in a confusing spot with 2001’s Ancient Melodies of the Future, the band’s most unsatisfying listen. The pop melodies were there, but they lagged under the weight of Phil Ek’s overcooked production and Martsch’s instrumental ambitions. Between that album and this one, the band parted ways with Ek and took a five-year nap, which appears to have done them a lot of good. From the first punchy drumbeats and crystal-clear guitars on the epic opener “Goin’ Against Your Mind,” it’s clear that the group is refreshed and ready to begin anew.

“Goin’ Against Your Mind” is You in Reverse’s manifesto, setting the stage for much of the music to follow. It begins with a clean drumbeat and happy guitars that practically scream ’90s jangle-pop, before jumping into an ebullient chorus in which everyone plays at the top of their game. After some twisty guitar work, the band settles into a lull containing little more than a crooning, vaguely spaghetti-western guitar, and the song ends with an explosion of beautiful Dinosaur Jr.-worthy noise. It’s obvious from “Goin’ Against Your Mind” that Martsch views guitar histrionics and pop melodies as the same beast, and it’s at this point that he is finally able to convince us that they are.

Anyone who knows Built to Spill knows that they’ve been blessed with several gifts, one of which is making nine-minute songs like “Goin’ Against Your Mind” feel like half their length. Another gift is their ability to craft songs that are long on emotion but short on sap, thankfully avoiding the dreaded “emo” tag. “Goin’ Against Your Mind” is actually part of a one-two-three punch that includes “Traces” and “Liar,” both of which are emotional but completely listenable.

The guitar-only chorus of “Traces” is soaked with regret, while “Liar” acts as its reconciliatory counterpart, with sunnier guitars and a drumbeat straight from the annals of twee-pop. Martsch’s falsetto provides the final earnest touch; when he sings, “I wouldn’t be a liar if I told you that,” you can’t help but believe him.

While there are moments whenYou in Reverse sinks into the production hell that marred Ancient Melodies, such as the proggy organ-guitar combo at the end of “Gone,” the killer pop/rock salvo “Conventional Wisdom” nearly obliterated all my nitpicky quips. In terms of pure joy, “Conventional Wisdom” tops anything on Keep It Like a Secret, and is hands down the hookiest, catchiest song Built to Spill has written in years, even as it journeys through three sections and plenty of Pavement-style guitar howls. Without the noise, You in Reverse sounds like the pop album that Death Cab for Cutie should have made after Transatlanticism. With the noise, it’s the near-perfect marriage of beauty and abrasion—the unofficial sequel to Dinosaur Jr.’s You’re Living All Over Me—and arguably Built to Spill’s best record yet.