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'There Is No Enemy' artwork

Built To Spill are one of those rare bands who, in this country at least, have been overtaken by those that they have influenced. Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie) and Isaac Brock (Modest Mouse) publicly admit that this band have had a massive impact on their own styles. With this latest outing from the Idaho fivesome, There Is No Enemy, it shows immediately.

Opening track “Aisle 13″ starts with a delay effect Pete Townshend would envy, a wailing solo topping before cutting into the gloriously pubescent voice and broken chords of Doug Martsch. In the voice there are still those seeds of Ben Gibbard, now fully grown.

In second track “Hindsight” the band take a detour to a folky dreampop place reminiscent of certain joyful Elliott Smith songs, or Mountain Goats with drums. It sounds like an ideal Summer road trip song until you listen to what the man is saying; ‘think we’re getting up, feel like giving up, feels like not enough for you to come and waste the love.’ It’s a well-known fact that the best songs have dark messages on top of lovely tunes (see: The Smiths), and this is proof.

What you have to remember is that Built To Spill are not a new band. They had no small part in inventing the majority of what we listen to today, from Bright Eyes to The Strokes and everything in between. This is in fact their seventh album, having formed in 1992 and survived in various incarnations ever since. So this is their eighteenth year of existence. Bands have normally tired: their style out, their fans out or of each other by their second or third album. But this doesn’t sound like a band decaying, not by a long shot. It sounds like a band elongating their peak and enjoying it – but not in a happy way. Happiness is all too often the death of a great indie band.

Elsewhere the album deals with topics of religion, suicide and unrequited love – par for the course on any great album, of course, but the way in which they fit these in is brilliant. The music ranges from folk, to straight out punk, to grandiose Krautrock jams. There is a lot of Dinosaur Jr. in most guitar tones, but when has that ever been a bad thing? This is a great album by a great band who show no fear of middle age, and still talk about things teenagers do, like Bill Hicks and women who won’t hold your hand. This album, their first to be properly released in Britain, is fantastic and another highlight on an excellent band’s resume.