[review 2006: the disappointments]

Had Ancient Melodies of the Future never come out, I might’ve been more excited about You In Reverse, Built to Spill’s return from a five-year hiatus. Keep It Like A Secret overflowed with guitar hero anthems like “Carry The Zero,” a magnificent song that reached heights Built to Spill haven’t reached since. If You In Reverse had followed the glory of Keep It Like a Secret, we could come up with any number of excuses to explain the relative disappointments and failures of the band’s latest album; it’d been seven years, things had changed, the band just needed time to get back on their feet, we just needed time to remember what made Built to Spill great.

If You In Reverse was the first material we’d heard from Built to Spill since Keep It Like a Secret, we’d call the new album a misstep. But one misstep we can forgive; two missteps is a lot harder. And Ancient Melodies of the Future was a big misstep—one that fails in many of the same areas You In Reverse fails. So now You In Reverse becomes part of a trend rather than a fluke, and it’s in that light that its failures become more obvious.

You In Reverse isn’t as exciting or interesting as that high-water mark; it stays stubbornly glued to the ground where Keep It Like a Secret soared into indie rock heaven. What You In Reverse does retain is Secret’s tendency towards the epic, but unfortunately this hurts the album more than it helps. “The Wait” and “Liar” wouldn’t have been all that interesting as two-minute songs; to stretch them to five is criminal. And there are far too many of these tepid mid-tempo numbers, hurt even further by the apparent lack of an editor, or at least some guy in the studio who could sit everyone down and explain that while it might be fun to fuck around on the guitar for three minutes, it’s not necessarily going to keep anyone glued to the speakers.

Even during the extended bridges and solos on Keep It Like a Secret, you knew where the band was going. I don’t mean to say the songs were predictable, but you could trust Built to Spill to go way out with the guitar acrobatics, and then bring it all back home to finish a song, or hit the final chorus or whatever. By contrast, You In Reverse simply floats; when Doug Martsch begins a solo, you don’t really get the sense that he knows where it’s going. Songs seem to meander without purpose, and though occasionally that can lead to interesting places, on You In Reverse all it leads to is boredom. When you’re dealing with already weak mid-tempo numbers like “Wherever You Go,” the solos merely add to the frustration—you never feel like there’s going to be a big payoff.

But worse is what the many solos and interstitials do to the interesting songs. “Goin’ Against Your Mind’s” first three minutes are fantastic, but then almost loses the plot with a lengthy interregnum before we get back to the rock. Once the song hits the seven-minute mark, you get the sense that even the second burst of energy should have ended by now, but there’s still two minutes of the song to go. “Conventional Wisdom” is similar; though the basic melody is actually a bit pat, the song motors along quite well until it wanders into noodling territory less than halfway through. And this time there is no second burst of energy or a return to the original refrain; the song just fades out with Doug Martsch in the middle of some more guitar acrobatics.

Maybe the band does need time to get back on its feet, and maybe we just need some time to readjust our expectations of what a Built to Spill album sounds like. Of all the albums I’ve listed as “disappointments,” You In Reverse is probably the best of the lot. In fact, there are a couple of songs I can genuinely get behind, like “Goin’ Against Your Mind.” But coming off Ancient Melodies of the Future, which was already a letdown from Keep It Like a Secret, I was really hoping for a screaming comeback album—one that would make everyone forget Built to Spill had ever been gone. Instead, we have You In Reverse, an album that kinda makes me wish they’d stayed away a bit longer. And that’s why, despite the potential, I think of the album as a disappointment.