Earnest lyrics and extended guitar noodling.

Driving rhythm and noisy arrhythmia.

Jangly guitars and space-out interludes.

Soaring guitar hooks and fuzzy distortion.

Sure, there are bands that try to incorporate all these sonic elements into their sound, but none do it quite as well as Built to Spill.

The Boise rockers have been straddling the line between the indie rock and jam band scenes for more than a decade now, with nonchalant frontman Doug Martsch personifying that balancing act.

In a sold-out show at Slim's in San Francisco last night, the band's first of four nights at the venue, the indie-jam band hybrid sound was in full flight, largely propelled by tracks from the band's first solo album in five years, You in Reverse.

Martsch and bassist Brett Nelson kicked off the show with a spare version of "Car" from the band's 1994 critical breakout There's Nothing Wrong With Love, with Martsch dedicating the song to the group's recently deceased former drummer, Andy Capps.

The rest of the band--drummer Scott Plouf and newly official members Jim Roth and Brett Netson--quickly joined the duo onstage and surged into "Goin' Against Your Mind," the opening track from Reverse. The track served as the perfect illustration of the band's sound. After a lengthy, three-guitar assault of an intro that would fit right into Neil Young's Ragged Glory days, Martsch delivered the song's plaintive opening lyrics in a voice that resembled that of Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie: "People think that we don't understand/what it takes to want to be a man/I don't care much for that." A space-out section followed, only to be torpedoed by another blistering guitar onslaught.

Like bands on both sides of the indie-jam band fence, Built to Spill rolled out plenty of sonic protests of the current political climate, both subtle and not so much. The most vivid of those was a cover of "Rearrange," the antiviolence anthem from reggae legends the Gladiators. The song includes an ironic twist on the famous John F. Kennedy line: "Don't ask what your country can do for you/the question is what you can do for it."

There was plenty of message, but much of the night was dominated by the jam, none more lengthy and caustic than on the catchy but corrosive "Conventional Wisdom," as well as the show's nearly 20-minute encore, "Broken Chairs."

But it was rarely noodling for noodling's sake, and it was finely balanced out by some crafty songwriting, making Martsch and Built to Spill the definitive band for those with a penchant for both hipster thrift-store duds and a dash of patchouli.