Built to Spill's Doug Martsch has always been a bit
of an indie rock champion, if there is such a thing. As a guitarist and
vocalist, Martsch is an adroit craftsman of melodies and transforming
progressions, a masterful explorer of the spaces between flowing sounds and tight attacks. Martsch’s guitar tone, hard-edged and faintly shimmering,
resonates perfectly over everything he writes, making him one of those oft
picked over guitarists among gear websites and magazines. Occupying a period in
time that valued grungy guitars and lo-fi production, Doug Martsch and Built to
Spill were able to utilize those styles and make them catchy and accessible in a
way that few bands had before. Where bands like Dinosaur Jr. and Pavement paved
the way for a new wave of alternative music, Built to Spill laid down the
paint, drew up maps, and posted signs that said “This way for success” for its
Northwestern contemporaries to follow in the coming years. In fact, if “indie”
as a genre really means anything at all, you can see it characterized best in
the music of Built to Spill, despite being signed to the Warner Bros.
label for 20 years. Consistency has never been an issue for the group, which is
more than can be said about a lot of other 90’s-bands still making music today.
And yet, somehow, every new Built to Spill album seems a bit
out of place alongside its predecessors. After 2001’s Ancient Melodies of the Future was released, it seemed like they had
already hit the major benchmarks that a “good” band has to make it through and
2006’s You in Reverse seemed almost
like an afterthought to a well-established discography. Doug Martsch and his rotating
lineup had put out four LPs, a live album, performed on several tours, and
influenced an extensive list of bands that would later dominate the scene
(Modest Mouse, Death Cab for Cutie, The Strokes, to name a few). You in Reverse wasn’t a bad album by any
means – in fact, it showcased some styles that the band had never really
touched on before and had some really killer standalone tracks – but it lacked
the cohesiveness and character that made Built to Spill albums so unmistakable.
2009’s There is No Enemy was a solid release for keeping the fan base
interested, but it held onto familiarity at the expense of adventurous content.
Now, six years later, we’ve been given Untethered Moon. With little promotion leading up to it
(truthfully, I didn’t even know it was coming out until I saw the video for
“Living Zoo” a month before the release of the LP), it seemed like an abrupt
addition from a band whose newer content many people had all but lost interest
in. But fortunately for guitar music stalwarts and long time fans, Built to
Spill’s newest album may be their best since Keep it Like a Secret and a welcome addition to the somewhat lackluster
latter half of the group’s discography.
Untethered Moon is
at times very different from Built to Spill’s previous work, but it never
strays from the core of what has always made them appealing – poppy hooks, noisy jam sections, gorgeous guitar overdubs. Oftentimes,
Martsch forgoes expansive
improvisational vamps in exchange for brevity. Very few ideas have a chance to
really develop completely, a far cry from the sprawling, fleshed out tracks on
Built to Spill’s indie classic, Perfect
from Now On, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Like passing landmarks
on a road trip, the best hooks on the album come and go quickly before you’ve
really had time to take it all in, and it makes for an album with pretty great
repeat value. And while it may be a little terse, it’s also the most focused
Built to Spill album to date. Where past records featured little lyrical unity,
Untethered Moon sees a pretty clear
theme. Although the feel of the music belies the subject matter, it’s a pretty
death-centric album. Most of the lines are spent reflecting on the passage of
time – Forgetting old friends on “C.R.E.B.,” seasons changing in “Horizon to
Cliff.” “And I was made from material that could never last, an obsolescence
that no one would have planned,” sings Martsch, almost nonchalantly, on
“Another Song.” They’re heavy matters, but Martsch never seems to let them get
him down.
In a recent interview with
Spin magazine, Martsch was asked
about his continuous investment in Built to Spill, to which he replied, “
It’s fun just jamming with your friends. There’s
nothing else I could do that would be as nice as this.” This attitude
shows on
Untethered Moon. It’s not a
groundbreaking album, but it is familiar in all of the right ways. The tracks are
fun to listen to and the lyrics explore an emotional level that Built to Spill
has never touched on before, but it’s more or less what one would expect from
the group. Fortunately, it’s always expected that Built to Spill will turn out
great releases, and
Untethered Moon is
undoubtedly a great release.
- Kane
