Built to Spill
There Is No Enemy
Warner Brothers
By Al Kaufman
The good news is that Built to Spill, the godfathers of the indie rock scene, are back in fighting form after a few meandering missteps. The bad news is that few seem to care. It's been about 10 years since Built to Spill put out a truly great album (Remember Perfect from Now On and Keep It Like a Secret?) and during the interim, upstarts like Modest Mouse, Death Cab for Cutie, and even the entire indie-rock supergroup Monsters of Folk have filled the vacuum. So Built to Spill's great new CD was tossed onto the masses with nary a whisper.
Too bad. There Is No Enemy is full of the crackling pop and textures that made Built to Spill such revolutionaries. Doug Martsch continues to write moody, deeply textured melodies, but he is more focused with them (although many may wish to pass over the jam band sounding "Oh Yeah," or the end of "Done," which sounds like it has a space battle video game going on in the background).
"Life's a Dream" embodies "la la la"s from the psychedelic Beatles days, and "Things Fall Apart" is a gorgeous, gut-wrenching, break-up ballad. Then there's the straight ahead crunchy guitars that encompass "Pat." And all of it is brought together by Martsch's high-pitched, nasally vocals. Welcome back Built to Spill, many have tried to duplicate, but nobody can replace.
