Built to Spill
Keep it Like a Secret
[Warner Bros.]
Rating: 9.3
I hate talking about press kits, but I'm gonna drop the rule this time
around. Press kits, for the uninitiated, are like a sales pitch. You
get a letter from some yahoo behind a desk who has this neat band they
want you to check out. To get you to do that, they also include various
write-ups and reviews for a previous work or, in the case of a new band,
loads of "Next Big Thing" accolades. Usually, a press kit is a dozen
pages or less. The Built to Spill press kit, on the other hand, may be
the next great American novel. First, a three page letter from the
publicist. Secondly, an 8x10 publicity shot featuring Doug
Martsch flanked by bandmates and sitting on a radiator playing a
guitar. (I'm sure he plays on the radiator all the time, or so the
world of publicity shots would have me believe.) Then, twenty-eight
pages consisting mostly of unanimous rave reviews for their last album,
the fucking awesome Perfect From Now On. Finally, a four page article
from the new issue of Spin regarding the new release... which is
somewhere in the envelope. I had to turn the kit upside down and start
shaking until a white cardboard promotional CD case came a-tumbling out.
I put the disc in the player and began to leaf through the kit. Sure,
I was just looking for my name somewhere in the clippings, and I suppose
it would have helped to have previously written about them before. But
that's fine because I can sit there and mock my fellow writers by
playing the "Sounds Like..." drinking game or trying to find the biggest
cliché of them all. The winner was a tie between Mr. Showbiz's Grant
Alden, who referred to Perfect as "...less ebullient than its predecessor,
and has a wry durability about itself, yielding polished gems..." and the
usual hands- down winner, Will Hermes of the Village Voice, who actually
managed to string together the words, "As far as rock goes, the stay- at-
home types seem peculiarly American these days, a gesture from a post- grunge
culture weary and dubious of being the biggest, loudest, and most
important, just as current Britpop might be read, in part, as
postcolonialist white British weary of apologizing for its history and
looking to feel good about itself again" and call it a coherent sentence.
The one thread that held every single review and article together was
how different Perfect was from the band's previous release, 1993's
There's Nothing Wrong With Love. Love was built on short,
sharp, and snappy pop songs, but Perfect was-- as everybody went
on to note-- "epic." Indeed, the 1996 release had few tunes under six
minutes and wove dense guitars, emotional debris, and schizophrenic song
structures into something gorgeous and fascinating. As avid readers of music
publications will note as the reviews trickle in, Keep It Like a Secret
will be heralded for retreating back to the pop songs of Love while keeping
a foot inside Perfect's scrimmage line of dexterity and guitar heroism.
(My friends, I think when the next album's press kit arrives, I'm
going to win my own petty game with that last sentence.) It also recalls
last year's fine Halo Benders release, The Rebels Not In, the album
Martsch recorded with Beat Happening's Calvin Johnson and former Spinanes
and current Built to Spill drummer Scott Plouf. And that's not a bad thing
at all.
Seriously, Keep It Like a Secret has already been spun at Club Jason
five times within the past 24 hours. That's not a frequent occurrence--
not unless it really, and truly is, love. Doug Martsch just knows how
to tickle me in all of the happy places, and he accomplishes that on the
merits of the opening number alone. "The Plan" is a brisk, weaving anthem
complete with a solo that would make Thurston Moore green with envy.
"Center of the Universe," the second cut and first single, conjures up
some XTC and a little bit of Barnacle Pete's finer sea shanties. And
what have we here? It's the downright pretty "Carry the Zero," which
merges Cocteau Twins- esque guitars and melody with equal sigh and much
more articulate lyrics, none of which I'm going to quote to you.
"Sidewalk" is classic indie rock in sound, classic rock in execution--
something I've been waiting a long time to hear.
Speaking of classic rock, "You Were Right" is a tongue- in- check number
about spitting back classic rock lyrics ("You were right when you said
all we are is dust in the wind/ You were right when you said that we're
all just bricks in the wall"), although why he's doing it is a mystery.
But it's a fun mystery. You know, like "Mystery" on PBS, only without that
meddling Alistair Cooke. Believe me, if there's one man who can spoil a
rock and roll party, it's that evil tool of the Mobil Corporation.
Luckily, he's passed on, leaving Diana Rigg to run the show, and she's no
match for Martsch. Keep It Like a Secret? No, at the risk of hopping
on a cliché wagon, I think I'm gonna tell all my friends about Built to
Spill. Try and stop me, Diana.
-Jason Josephes