Hot Thoughts
Spoon
(Matador Records)
Three stars
Spoon has released its ninth album – one with a cruder and more experimental approach. Helmed by producer Dave Fridmann (Mercury Rev, The Flaming Lips), Hot Thoughts is raw, sinewy and often danceable.
The album is packed with solid grooves and an economy of arrangements.
The sounds lean heavily on dance vibes of the 1970s and Alex Fischel's wide array of keyboards. Do I Have to Talk You Into It features a dryly reverberating, John Bonham-like snare, played by Jim Eno, as the distortion on fellow founding member Britt Daniel's voice underlines the exasperation of "feeling cut off from everyone".
I Ain't the One features a Prince drum sound and bursts with vocal harmonies that accentuate the loneliness of a failed contender. Rob Pope's bass propels Shotgun, which sounds like a harsher twin of Kiss' I Was Made for Loving You, a bad-boy memoir with violence tempered by concerns over health insurance.
Cooperation improves as the tune’s five minutes near their end, but there’s no escaping a disquieting, anxious sensation.
Spoon reaffirm their merits while stretching its comfort zone – and yours.
* Associated Press
