Album Review: You In Reverse by Built To Spill

Built to Spill haven't released an album for five years, and the time off seems to have rejuvenated the band -- You in Reverse is full of fire and energy. The bandmembers play with a thrilling blend of abandon and sensitivity on this mix of accessible guitar rockers, twisting and turning guitar workouts, and somber balladry with enough intelligence and emotion to put groups half their age to shame (and by the looks of the gray in their beards, they are getting up there). Many of the songs on You in Reverse are midtempo ballads, some quiet and autumnal ("Traces"), most trippy and bursting with wild and dramatic guitar solos ("The Wait," "Gone").

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Acts that take five years making an album have either developed a creative block or have embarked on an exhaustive quest for perfection. Thankfully, the acclaimed Idaho band's first offering since 2001's Ancient Melodies of the Future errs towards the latter. Led by the enigmatic Doug Martsch, they have a similar transcendental, driven quality to Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse.

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Some bands do not take well to aging. The mundane inevitability of growing up withers or negates something innocent and free about the music they play, so they throw tantrums or make regrettable records or break up and reform in different incarnations. By all accounts Built To Spill should be such a band: at their apex, their giddy guitar freakouts were the very model of fresh-faced vigor, the carefree but fleeting caprice of youth.

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