Built to Spill’s 1999 masterpiece, Keep It Like a Secret, is somehow impervious to the corrosive effects of time or the limiting powers of nostalgia. A song like “Center of the Universe” can plug you into the ancient bliss and sorrow of whatever you were up to 20 years ago, but it does so without blocking access to the electric now. The album is not merely an artifact, a worn charm without edges. It continues to bristle and swirl like a newly alive thing, but it is a newly alive thing that already knows you. And that is a rare and wonderful miracle.

by Chris Stamm