Spoon return home to make their hottest rock ever, impressing the Dark Lord enough that he’s now a perpetually unwelcome house guest.
Spoon are a tricky, subversive band, one that presented more or less as bog standard indie rock for their first few albums, but really solid ones. They’ve transcended beyond that over the past couple decades. They have ups and downs, albums that might disappoint at first (the difficult Transference, the synthy dance-pop of Hot Thoughts), but they’re always good. In the five year silence since their last album, I’ve revisited the albums I took for granted, and was rewarded with fresh revelations. Play their entire catalog on random and you’ve got a solid day six and a half hours of engaging, taut, minimalist indie pop with elements of peak era Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe, Wire, Roxy Music and other art rock elements so finely minced it only sounds like Spoon.
When I heard there was a new Spoon album coming, I was excited, even though there hadn’t been a new album I loved in 15 years. And yet, I get a sixth sense when I hear a good rock band ready to claw their way out of an electropop hole. In the interest of being up to date, Spoon spliced together their previous two albums in the studio, and they were good for sure. But as many a band has realized after playing those songs live, they sounded better live. So why don’t they just record, you know, like as a real band, playing music in a room? I can’t help but think of a Spinal Tap-worthy quote from Dave Grohl: “So we were like, ‘God, if we were to record again, how are we going switch it up?’ For us to switch it up right now (whistles) would be to go into the studio and make a record like a normal band. That kind of became the focus, it was like alright, now that we can sort of shed that other stuff and just write songs and record them in a studio as you do.” Brilliant.
Except it didn’t make a damn bit of difference for the Foo Fighters, as they continued to suck. Why do I feel kind of bad picking on them? Fuck ’em, they’re in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Thin Lizzy aren’t. Anyway, it made a pretty massive difference for Spoon, with the help of co-producer Mark Rankin, who worked on the last couple Queens of the Stone Age albums. The songs jump out of the speakers with more energy than I’ve heard from them in, well, ever. After living in Portland and Los Angeles, Britt Daniels moved back to Austin, as did guitarist/keyboardist Alex Fischel. His homecoming is more than symbolic, as the album gives a hint for the first time that Daniels grew up in Texas. Not that they sound like ZZ Top now, but there is a subtle taste of blues rock, such as, “The Devil & Mister Jones,” slinky like 1978-81 era Rolling Stones.
“Held” is a great opener, starting with an atmospheric slow burn that subtly grows in intensity. Interestingly it’s a cover, of a late 90s Smog song. “The Hardest Cut” is well served by a diamond hard guitar riff. “Wild” sounds like they got The Edge to guest in a re-imagining of “Sympathy for the Devil” while Lucifer sets his sweaty bourbon glass on the coffee table (bastard never uses the coaster), strokes his goatee and says, “mmmph, that’s nice.” “My Babe” starts like any number of Spoon’s slower neo-ballads, but the band jumps in and rocks it home. “Feels Alright” sounds like a sunny celebratory song that I’m not quite ready for. Let’s vaccinate more motherfuckers and maybe I’ll crank this in the spring. “On The Radio” is a kind of spiritual successor to “Car Radio,” this time a tribute to Daniels’ clock radio that was his lifeline to the outside world while tucked away in his childhood home in Temple, Texas. I can totally relate — my clock radio was my primary listening device to the airwaves between age ten and fifteen, when I finally got a sweet-ass double cassette boombox with detachable speakers and graphic equalizer. The hooks, the chorus, my god it sounds like a classic rock hit. Will check back in a decade.
“Astral Jacket” is a subdued, lovely palate cleanser and “Satellite” is another stunner, reminding me in spirit of Mercury Rev at their most glistening and mournful. After the elegiac title track, it’s . . . over? A succinct ten tracks and it’s done? But, but what about the 20 other tracks that were recorded in the sessions? Will their be a part two, Lucifer in my Bed? Pretty please, I promise not to take a great Spoon album for granted ever again.
