Keep It Like A Secret

Mojo - "...Reclusive Idaho guitarist/songwriter finally gets it right....He also has a powerful emotional, instrumentally muscular and impressively varied fourth album..." CMJ - "...Most focused effort in its nine-year career....a luminously poetic expression of good old-fashioned crash-and-burn sonic beauty..." CMJ - Ranked #6 in CMJ's "Top 30 Editorial Picks [1999]" Rolling Stone - "...Built To Spill songs are typically about the physics of colliding emotions, about dissension at home and in the head....Yet there is something very whole and intoxicating about the way Martsch sets unraveling relationships against fastidiously scripted riff fireworks..." Entertainment Weekly - "...Idaho oddity Built to Spill make music with a weird naive excitement that recalls R.E.M. at their fresh-out-of-Athens finest..." - Rating: B CMJ - Included in CMJ's list of "Top 25 College Radio Albums of All Time" Melody Maker - 4 stars out of 5 - "...[Their] return to form....Not a bad choice for Grandaddy's grandad."

Perhaps realizing that their time on a major label was likely limited, Built to Spill made a gutsy choice for Keep It Like a Secret, their second album for Warner Brothers. They embraced the sounds of a big studio and focused their sound without sacrificing their fractured indie rock aesthetic. In a sense, this is Built to Spill's pop album: every song is direct and clean, without the long, cerebral jamming that characterized their earlier albums. That's not to say that the album is compromised -- the songwriting may be streamlined, but Doug Martsch now packs all of his twists, turns, and detours into dense, three-minute blasts. This approach, combined with the shiny sonic textures, makes Keep It Like a Secret the most immediate and, yes, accessible Built to Spill record, but they steadfastly open their music up and breathe the way, say, Pavement did on Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain or Brighten the Corners. Built to Spill still demand that listener meet them on their own terms -- these just happen to be the easiest terms to understand in their catalog. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine|