Spoon is the most reliable band on the planet, each album a slight variation on frontman Britt Daniel’s long-running love of terse, sharp-edged Rock & Roll.
The Austin, Texas outfit’s eighth album, 2014’s They Want My Soul, is more of the same, each song a deceptively simple mix of interlocking parts: insistent beats from essential drummer Jim Eno, angular guitar riffs, driving bass lines, a sprinkling of keyboards and other subtle additives and Daniel’s vocals, which are as up-front as ever.
In fact, the latter might be the most intriguing element of the new record. On the weirdly intimate “I Just Don’t Understand,” it sounds as if Daniel is standing next to the listener, delivering typically vague but universal lyrics like “You just don’t understand” with uncommon urgency for a singer known for his emotional reticence. The sprightly, keyboard- and xylophone-aided album closer “New York Kiss” might be the most vivid visual in the band’s nearly 20-year run, as Daniel describes, amid the band’s usual coiled brilliance, a memorable lip lock with a mix of nostalgia and defiance.
“As soon as I started being able to work the record player in my living room, I would just stare at those gatefold record sleeves, and that’s what I wanted to do,” Daniel recently told NPR when asked about the band’s continued relevance. “But I never counted on it. It’s great to be able to do it, though. I don’t know what else I want to do.”
This article appears in Jun 10-16, 2015.
