It is unfortunate that the alternative rock scene, which
\nblossomed in the early 90’s, did not live up to the hype that was
\nmade at the time. Too many of the bands that had monster hits could
\nnot live up to the standards they set on their followup recordings.
\nAlso, many of the newer bands just seem like tepid imitations of
\nthe older bands.<\/p>\n
Help does seems to be on the way, though. Enter the Idaho band
\nBuilt To Spill with their wonderful new CD,
\nKeep It Like A Secret<\/i>.What sets this band apart from many
\nothers is that they go back to the basics. Their approach and
\ninfluences seem to be the same as the older alternative bands. I
\nhear a lot of Neil Young and Bob Mould in their sound, but they
\ntake what those artists did a step further providing a more
\noff-center, quirky feel.<\/p>\n
You will immediately notice the Young-like intonations in singer
\nDoug Martsch’s voice when he sings “The plan keeps coming up again”
\non the first song called “The Plan”. But you will also hear how the
\nsong gradually shifts into indie-rock territory helped along with
\nMartsch’s Mould like guitar licks. Built To Spill stays truer to
\nYoung’s style with the folk-rocker “Carry The Zero”, betrayed only
\nat the very end when the guitars crank up to an alternative
\nfury.<\/p>\n
There are other influences on
\nKeep It Like A Secret<\/i>. “Center Of The Universe” recalls the
\nmore audacious sound of Jane’s Addiction. The pop-oriented
\n“Sidewalk” has a great hook with enough of a quirky charm to be
\nmore than a standard pop song. Their best chance for a hit is on
\nthe novelty tune “You Were Right” which make references to famous
\nclassic rock lines: “You were right when you said we are all just
\ndust in the wind\/You were right when you said we’re all just bricks
\nin the wall”.<\/p>\n
However,
\nKeep It Like A Secret<\/i> is not as poppy as I have made it
\nseem. “Time Trap” starts off with a long instrumental before the
\nquirky vocals and rhythm appear. “Temporarily Blind” is a strange
\nsong with unusual guitar licks that shifts gears a couple times
\nkeeping the listener off balance. The CD ends with “Broken Chairs”,
\na long, moody piece with a jam that is mesmerizing.<\/p>\n
This type of quirky alternative rock tends to be very hit and
\nmiss, and while I really liked it, I must admit that it is not for
\neveryone.
\nKeep It Like A Secret<\/i> proves to me that the alternative rock
\nscene is not as creatively dead as I thought. But if radio
\ncontinues to ignore bands like Built To Spill, the scene will
\ncontinue to be in a coma.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":27616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7403],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-38991","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-built-to-spill","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38991"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38991"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}