Built To Spill

Doug Martsch lets his guitar do most of the talking on this live album from 2000. The group squeezes in a few songs from Perfect From Now On, as well as a fine version of "Car," but the main attraction here is the nearly note-perfect, 20-minute rendition of Neil Young's "Cortez The Killer," which rivals the original's power and intensity.

Recorded during Built to Spill's 1999 U.S. tour, Live captures this inventive Boise, Idaho, trio
in full creative bloom, mixing Spartan rock structures with marathons of searching guitar
solos and exploratory jams. Some songs are given a new tone: "The Plan" has a more
desperate edge than it did on last year's Keep It Like a Secret, with Doug Martsch's guitar
and his distinctive voice raging, tremulously, in the upper registers. Other tracks... More >

The holy purpose of Doug Martsch's songwriting is the riffs it feeds his guitar. Lyrics that poke into the tribulations and satisfactions of indie life may be worth excavating, may even convince us that for Martsch small-town life is an end in itself. In fact, however, he treasures low-overhead slackerdom for affording the physical time and spiritual space where musical epiphanies can flourish--for providing the raw material of its own transcendence. As much as Martsch's turbulent flow owes J Mascis, Neil Young is definitely the godfather--so that when Martsch launches a 20-minute "Cortez the Killer" you may forget what record you've got on until you realize how much louder Martsch's cannonading repetitions are. There's no folk rock in him--and, for that pomo touch, plenty of computer. (Grade - A-)