Who: A pillar of 1990s indie music, leader Doug Martsch's Boise, Idaho-based band has continued carrying the torch for guitar-based rock in the decades since, touring regularly and releasing occasional—and still excellent—studio albums, most recently 2015's Untethered Moon.
The album: The current tour celebrates the 20th anniversary of 1999 LP Keep It Like a Secret, the third piece of Built to Spill's beloved '90s album trilogy (following 1994's There's Nothing Wrong With Love and 1997's Perfect From Now On). Where Perfect featured eight slow-burning compositions running from five to eight minutes apiece, Secret scaled back on that sprawl, with half of its 10 tracks—including catchy cuts "The Plan," "Center of the Universe" and "Else" coming in under (or around) four minutes.
"Keep It Like a Secret was a shift back in the other direction, mostly because Perfect From Now On was such a hard record to make," Martsch, Built to Spill's vocalist and lead guitarist, told Consequence of Sound earlier this year. "If a song is twice as long, it doesn't take twice as much work. It takes, like, five times as much work."
Despite its sharper focus, Secret still includes moments of epic ecstasy, like the hypnotic "Time Trap;" fist-pumping fan favorite "Carry the Zero;" the rock pantheon-checking lyrics of "You Were Right" ("You were right when you said all we are is dust in the wind/You were right when you said we're all just bricks in the wall"); and the unhurried—deliberately untidy—"Broken Chairs."
The show: Expect to hear all of Secret ... but not in the order you know. A setlist.fm check finds the band—whose latest lineup features Brazilians Lé Almeida (drums), João Casaes (bass) and João Luiz (guitar)—resequencing the record in concert, and mixing in a few non-Secret catalog cuts and covers. Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets" even made a recent appearance.
The past: Built to Spill's relationship with Las Vegas dates back to a 2003 House of Blues gig, which was followed by an appearance at the second Vegoose fest in '06, another HOB show in '07 and then—after six years away from the local scene—2013's re-emergence at Vinyl and four Bunkhouse sets between 2014 and 2016.
BUILT TO SPILL with Slam Dunk, Sunbathe. November 15, 8 p.m., $25. Brooklyn Bowl, 702-862-2695.
