Review: Built To Spill – There is No Enemy
Review: Built To Spill – There is No Enemy
Filed in ALBUM NEWS, Built To Spill on October 14, 2009 with Comments
Built to Spill
There Is No Enemy
Warner Bros
Released: October 6, 2009
Built to Spill’s seventh full length album, There Is No Enemy, finds the Boise, ID indie rock stalwarts refining the direction they established with their two previous releases, 2001’s Ancient Melodies of the Future and 2006’s You In Reverse. The album’s tone and production style offer a melding of these two albums though the heavy reggae influence of You In Reverse has clearly softened here. The diverse song structures, ranging from the full-on rocker “Pat”, to the melodic ballad “Nowhere Lullaby”, to the dreamier pop jams of “Done” and “Good Ol’ Boredom” also reflect the band’s recent stylistic explorations.
Stream “Hindsight” off the new album:
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Doug Martsch’s witty wordplay is ever-present along with the guitar hero licks you’ve come to expect from the band’s output. While some lyrics may stray into the realm of nonsense, like the refrain “What about Canada?” from “Hindsight”, there is clearly more substantive lyrical subject matter throughout the album, as exhibited by nuggets like, “Everyone in the world is just like me/so what grow up” from “Life’s A Dream”.
There Is No Enemy has catchy hooks aplenty, from the infectious lap steel guitar of “Hindsight” to the shimmery guitars that push “Good Ol’ Boredom” towards its climax. The band also shows an expanded musical palette, incorporating appropriate, dreamy, “la la la la” backing vocals on “Life’s A Dream”, crisp horns on “Things Fall Apart”, and graceful cello accompaniment on “Nowhere Lullaby”.
There Is No Enemy offers plenty for the die hard Built to Spill fan as well as the jam band fan with much of the second half of the album devoted to more extended but structured guitar jams. Enemy also serves as a fantastic introduction for those with no previous exposure to the band…a band that has matured over the past decade and is truly hitting its stride in this often awkward phase of existence.
Full album track listing:
01 “Aisle 13″
02 “Hindsight”
03 “Nowhere Lullaby”
04 “Good Ol’ Boredom”
05 “Life’s A Dream”
06 “Oh Yeah”
07 “Pat”
08 “Done”
09 “Planting Seeds”
10 “Things Fall Apart”
11 “Tomorrow”
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