Keep It Like a Secret

1	The Plan 3:29
2	Center Of The Universe 2:43
3	Carry The Zero 5:44
4	Sidewalk 3:51
5	Bad Light 3:22
6	Time Trap 5:22
7	Else 4:09
8	You Were Right 4:45
9	Temporarily Blind 4:48
10	Broken Chairs 8:40

Barnes & Noble

Boise, Idaho's Built to Spill has been called indie rock's Grateful Dead, a distinction few who've heard its soaring, gorgeous guitar epics will deny. Yet it's the band members' ability to add pop punch and lyricism to their rangy symphonics that makes Built to Spill the most exciting guitar band in America. At the band's center is singer-guitarist Doug Martsch, a Neil Young-style whiner and Dinosaur Jr. style guitarist whose angry, sensitive lyrics provide a welcome alternative to the mopey balladry of an Elliot Smith or the alienated drone of Radiohead's Thom Yorke. Where the band's last release, 1997's PERFECT FROM NOW ON, saw Martsch's heart-shaped guitar wandering all over the astral plane, KEEP IT LIKE A SECRET is a more focused, accessible effort -- a career best that leaps around the common ground between indie rock's vulnerability and classic rock's triumphant musical dexterity. Songs like "The Plan" and "Temporarily Blind" spin and spiral like tornadoes, clearing the way for the sweet, languid "Else" and the raging, postgrunge rocker "You Were Right." But even at its most atmospheric, Built to Spill makes rock that's always as tuneful as it is turgid. Jon Dolan

All Music Guide

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