Let me put this out there straight away. Spoon is one of my favorite bands and I enjoy nearly everything that they’ve put out. Ever since I saw Spoon on Austin City Limits in 2002, I’ve been hooked on their rock & soul minimalist sound. They are one of the primary reasons that I got into indie music towards the end of my high school tenure, and “Girls Can Tell” has remained one of my favorite albums of all time since I heard it. “Kill the Moonlight” took some time for me to get used to, but I love how they combined an experimental sound with so few elements on each song yet it still retained that blue collar accessibility. I enjoyed the expanding sound and grooves of “Gimme Fiction” immediately, while it still allowed for more subtle songs to grow into favorites.

If I were to compare the latest albums to different varieties of foods, I would say that “Girls Can Tell” would be the original recipe, “Kill the Moonlight” would be the low calorie alternative that is surprisingly filling, “Gimme Fiction” would be the 5-star restaurant interpretation into a 3 course meal, and the newest offering would be the spicy mélange of all three. “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga” offers up tasty bites of home grown guitar pop that are instantly savory and easily digestible. The production this time around features more studio wizardry, but the songs would work just as well without the panning accents and quote song breaks. In fact the effects call to mind the spontaneity of their earlier work, where they would start and stop between the 2 minute mark and feature vocals processed backwards through the outro. I find that these little accents make the record feel even more intimate, like sitting in your room listening to your favorite albums with a few friends over rather than in a huge stadium listening to something that gets overplayed on commercial radio.

As for songs, all the tracks are solid. There’s not a misstep to be heard. Brit Daniel’s vocals are as good as ever, Jim Eno’s drumming is, as per usual, hyper rhythmic, and all the grooves and melodies are as funky or as tough as they want to be. Opener, “Don’t Make Me a Target” (1), starts off with that familiar heavy “rough day at work” sound, bu then the beat changes, the piano becomes more menacing and the song glides on thoughts of what you would do to your incompetent boss if you could get away with it, before it comes calmly to an end. “The Ghost of You Lingers” (2) is a song composed of urgent piano hammering and panning vocals, which is probably the biggest departure from their traditional sound. The effects and atmosphere add an ominous edge that makes this track the most dramatic on the album. The two tracks I seem to always come back to are the sashaying thump of “Don’t You Evah” (4) and the triumphant melodies of “Finer Feelings” (9). To suggest that these songs would be better out of context to the remainder of the album would be a mistake as the feeling and presence of each song is enhanced by the track before and after it. So, a word of advice, you could listen to some tracks now, but for the full effect you need to hear the whole thing from beginning to end. Trust me on this, I am even a guy who enjoys singles immensely, but this album needs to be heard in its entirety. It’s just that good.

Buy “Gimme Fiction”

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MP3 – Spoon – No You’re Not (A Series of Sneaks)

MP3 – Spoon – The Delicate Place (Gimme Fiction)

MP3 – Spoon – Take a Walk (Girls Can Tell)

Spoon – The Ghost of You Lingers Music Video: