Keep It Like A Secret
Keep It Like A Secret
The hype claimed this would be Built to Spill’s breakthrough lp, the alt.rock album of the 90’s even. The problem being that they’ve already made that album with 94’s ‘There’s Nothing Wrong With Love.’ Skewering melodies, bright, bitchy guitars, songs about living in sometown, somewhere, growing up, where singer Doug Martsch might be in the scheme of things. In short, songs about himself that are about all of us, anytime, anywhere. The essential ingredients of a classic album. Since then, Martsch has moonlighted with K Records’ Calvin Johnson in the Halo Benders and made another BTS album, ‘Perfect From Now On’. The latter was a less poppy affair stuffed with sprawling guitar solos and left many non-plussed. It shouldn’t have. Martsch uses the guitar as a singer, reaching for it whenever words are not enough.
‘Keep it like a secret’ continues the penchant for the guitar rush while retaining Martsch’s trademarks: the pop sensibility tossed onto quirky rhythm shifts, the straining violin of a voice, the existential concerns.
Throughout, the yearning to connect rails vainly against our detachment from others and ourselves: I heard what I said to you / and it was so out of sync / with the way I wanted to / make myself out to seem. (‘Center of the Universe’) The conclusion is pessimistic: ‘You were wrong when you said ‘everything’s gonna be alright’ asserts Martsch in ‘You Were Right,’ a song that compiles famous lines from bands such as the Doors as evidence that everything goes wrong in the end. All done to a tune that is one moment dizzy and hysterical, the next humorous in resignation.
As powerful as it all is, the unrelenting pace of the album makes it hard to listen to in one go. Halfway through, you hope for a song like ‘Twin Falls’ from the aforementioned ‘There’s Nothing Wrong With Love’ to pour soothingly from the speakers. That is not to say that there is a dull moment on this record. Martsch’s way with a melody (several in each song) ensures that ‘Keep It Like A Secret’ is an enjoyable, if exhausting adventure.