Track Listing

1. The Plan
2. Center Of The Universe
3. Carry The Zero
4. Sidewalk
5. Bad Light
6. Time Trap
7. Else
8. You Were Right
9. Temporarily Blind
10. Broken Chairs

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23193 in Music
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com's Best of 1999
Doug Martsch is enough of a guitar god to fill Keep It Like a Secret, one of indie rock's strongest 1999 major-label releases, with blazing solos. He's also ambivalent about the whole thing, which allows him to highlight the album with "You Were Right," a despairing litany of classic-rock lyrical hooks. --Rickey Wright

Amazon.com essential recording
Most guitar heroes make their mark by doing something extravagant, like playing with their teeth or with their instrument in flames. Doug Martsch of Boise, Idaho's Built to Spill has acquired his guru status by simpler means--he combines his trippy, meandering guitar style with classic pop structures. Martsch also wins points for singing about small-scale moments as well as huge moral abstractions, from watching TV to contemplating the center of the universe. By subtly balancing the forest of dense guitars with Martsch's oddly prosaic yet uncannily beautiful singing, Built to Spill hold the rare achievement of making music that's rooted yet allows you to fly. "Time Trap" begins with a harplike guitar line floating above a heavy wave of distortion, drifts into a reggae pattern, and eventually rises to the high step of musical theater. The charming and funny "You Were Right" decides once and for all which of the classic-rock clichés ring true. "You were wrong when you said, 'Everything's going to be all right' / You were right when you said, 'We're all just bricks in the wall.'" It is a richly deserved analysis from alt rock's heroic Everyman. --Lois Maffeo

Spin
Bless his bleeding old-school heart, Spill CEO Doug Martsch is still wanking merrily away, making the most beautiful baroque electric guitar murals in modern rock.

Customer Reviews

Good, not something you can listen to all the way through.
This has some catchy tunes, but i was very disapointed. I can't get through any of the songs because they are just slow and boring.

a masterpiece...
at some point you will need this album. (and for those who care-- this album is an incredibly well recorded, mixed, and mastered rock album, which in this case adds an enormous amount to an already unique sound).

Not bad
I bought this CD for the song "Carry the Zero". A nice, meandering tune. Interesting guitar work throughout the album, but not too many songs really grab you like the above song. Kind of mellow vibe throughout, but with mildly heavy guitars.