Built to Spill — There Is No Enemy.  Out today on Warner Bros.  A rare major label acquisition for me.

Several people this fall have looked at me, perplexed, when I told them I was going to see Built to Spill in October, and I realized that for all I’ve spent a multitude of years online talking about music in very public places, I’m not sure that my deep and abiding ten year love for Built to Spill has ever been documented.  Built to Spill is a band that’s really close to my heart in a strange way; when I was a freshman in college, I bought Keep It Like A Secret the day it came out, at the little record store on Main Street in Northfield, Minnesota, for no reason other than I liked the cover, the girl with the wings.  Right there, in that moment, Built to Spill officially became the first band I discovered for myself, rather than having someone else point me in a particular musician’s direction, while I was in college.  February 1999 was a fairly miserable period in my life, for a variety of reasons that are totally irrelevant now — frankly, okay, look: it’s February in Minnesota, February in Minnesota sucks nuts regardless of anything else going on, and in college it was February in Minnesota, plus I was pretty much a huge trainwreck from 1998 to 2002 anyway — and that album is one among probably a dozen in my 29 years of existing that I can say saved my life by coming to me when they did.

Not the album itself, even — although it is one of my top ten favorite albums of all time and space forever and ever amen — but I guess the idea of the album was what saved my life, at that point.  It was this thing I’d found and I loved, and I had found it and decided to love it entirely on my own.  It was, in many ways, the first piece of my adult personality that clicked into place.  Built to Spill.  Minnesota.  February, 1999.  Done.

And so I don’t talk about how much I love them because it’s a little embarrassing, the ways in which and the reasons why I love Built to Spill.  It’s all very 19 year old drama queen college student, you know?  But it’s Built to Spill and I’ve never seen them live, and I’m still a little amazed by the fact that I’m going to finally get to, at one of my favorite venues of all time and space.

So after that long intro that was probably unnecessary, you want a review?  There Is No Enemy is fantastic.  It’s the spacey, trancey 90s alt-rock sound that I fell in love with ten years ago, all growed up and bigger and more complex, with more depth and bigger scope to it.  If you aren’t already a fan, it’s probably an album that could be dismissed as same-sounding, as not doing anything that other people aren’t already doing elsewhere.  But it’s Built to Spill — they’ve been doing this for 17 years as Built to Spill, and more than 20 as other bands, as well.  Doug Martsch and company did it first.  And so: this album sounds just like I wanted it to. It’s a great new Built to Spill album.  Is it a great album within context of every other album released this year?  I don’t know.  I honestly don’t. I couldn’t tell you.  But I love it, in all its rambling, trippy glory, and sometimes, that’s all that matters when you listen to a brand new album.

[Built to Spill — “Life’s A Dream”]  9MB, .mp3.

A few other excellent releases from today: the Mountain Goats, Life of the World To Come; Mike Doughty, Sad Man Happy Man; Lucero, 1372 Overton Park. All highly recommended!

In other news, the Hold Steady are taking my beloved Two Cow Garage on tour with them this fall, and they are playing a date in North-fucking-field, Minnesota. IE THE NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA MENTIONED ABOVE IN THIS POST. Let me tell you about Northfield, Minnesota: it has 14,000 permanent residents, two colleges whose populations account for about another 4,000 people, four bars and two liquor stores. And the Hold Steady’s gonna play the dry campus in town. Hoooooooly crap. That’s amazing.

MP3s are for sampling purposes only; if you enjoy what you hear, please support the artists by purchasing their music. Files are available for a limited time only. If you represent an artist or a label and would prefer that I remove a link to an mp3, please email me at asdonkar at gmail dot com and I will immediately remove the file.