Built To Spill: There Is No Enemy review

You know a Built To Spill song when you hear it, and within just over a minute of “Aisle 13,” the opening number on There Is No Enemy, there’s no doubt that you’re in capable hands. Much like Yo La Tengo before them, Doug Martsch and Co. have built a career out of being solidly reliable and meeting expectations, not exceeding them. Which is not to say that familiarity breeds contempt. Rather than being stunted by their own reliability and high levels of critical praise (lookin’ at you, Flaming Lips), Boise’s finest have put together an offering that feels firmly rooted in their best work while avoiding repeating themselves.

Produced by Martsch and Dave Trumfio (Grandaddy, Billy Bragg & Wilco), Enemy dials back some of the lesser elements of their previous effort, 2006’s You In Reverse, most notably the distortion and the extended running times. As with Yo La Tengo, Built To Spill know how to wind together a lengthy song, but they’re at their best when they restrain that impulse and keep it (relatively) short. As such, Enemy has only a handful of lengthier jams, rightly keeping the focus on (relative) brevity, especially on the opening trio of “Aisle 13,” “Hindsight” and “Nowhere Lullabye,” all of which recall 1994’s There’s Nothing Wrong With Love more than they do some of the band’s later works.

On tracks where they linger, such as “Done” and closer “Tomorrow,” the band avoids the pitfalls that befell them last time around both by varying the tracks enough to avoid overstaying their welcome and by staying firmly in mid-tempo territory, rather than the up-tempo aggressive playing that marked much of You In Reverse but wore itself out too quickly (as on tracks like “Goin’ Against Your Mind” and “Conventional Wisdom”).

Yet for all the stylistic similarities to their earlier works, Enemy is 2000s-era BTS all the way through, with Martsch and Trumfio again relying on the fuller sound that’s marked their last few LPs, rather than the lower-fi sonic palate of their more formative years. The record holds together well as a cohesive whole, largely more memorable than their past two releases, thanks in large part to tracks like “Done,” one of the album’s standout tunes. Centered on a two-chord pattern, Martsch sings with a frustrated malaise: “All I want is for your to make up your mind.” By the end of the nearly 7-minute song, however, all that’s given way to a mournful, hazy guitar solo coda. Elsewhere, the ferocity and punkish immediacy of “Pat” contrasts much of the rest of the disc’s contemplation, such as on tracks like the bouncy, effortless “Planting Seeds.”

Doug Martsch may take his time putting together an album, but think of all the bands that have risen and fallen in just the three years since the last BTS record. If you want a speedy output, go find Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – or better yet, Bloc Party. If, on the other hand, you want something that you might still be interested in listening to a year or more down the line, then Doug Martsch is your dude. It’s been worth the wait.

(Originally posted in slightly different form to Spectrum Culture, 10/16/09)