Built To Spill: You In Reverse : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

You in Reverse finds idaho's Built to Spill in a familiar groove: Recorded after the band spent months woodshedding in leader/guitar guy Doug Martsch's garage, the album is a dog-eared collection of front-porch melodies and buzzy guitar jams, with Neil Young and Frank Black as spiritual godfathers. Seven of the ten songs on You in Reverse crack the five-minute mark, which is a boon for Built to Spill's action-packed jams and expansive tune sense. The opening "Goin' Against Your Mind" is an eight-minute barnburner full of slashing riffs and jittery drums, with Martsch laying a catchy vocal where he might have put a searing guitar lead in the past; the brighter "Conventional Wisdom" starts with a sparkling arpeggiated riff, passes through Martsch's breezy melody and spins off into some shimmery soloing. The jams here rarely sound like filler: Even the Tex-Mex coda on "Mess With Time" packs more full-bodied crunch than the average Bonnaroo set. On the gorgeous closer, "The Wait," Martsch murmurs about the changing seasons in a sleepy drawl. Then, just to show you he's still kicking, he tacks on some space-age effects and a solo that soars over the gentle tune like a UFO in Idaho.