Album Review

With their popularity at an all-time high following the pop sheen and shiny horns added to their last album, you might have expected Spoon to continue down that road to popularity with a full-on blast of arena rock to court the masses. But, then again, Britt Daniel and his buddies from Austin didn’t get to their perch of indie-rock preeminence by doing what was expected of them.

As a result, Transference, their seventh album, is a mixture of spiky funk and spacious rock that defies the easy accessibility of irresistible songs like “The Underdog” and “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb” from 2007’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. These songs demand a bit more attention to work their subtle charms, and if you give them that, you’ll find the excellence of this album lies in its consistency.

It does take a while for things to get rolling though. The first four songs are well played and constructed, if a bit lacking in any sort of payoff. Songs like the brooding opener “Before Destruction” and tension-racked “The Mystery Zone” do a fine job of creating atmosphere. The band has always had the knack of leaving enough open space in songs to allow for their riffs and rhythms, when they do chime in, to create maximum impact, and that ability is evident on this opening quartet of songs.

The one thing lacking in the first part of the album is any sort of big surprise to keep us on our toes, but then “Written In Reverse” comes on, and that problem is eradicated quickly. Over some crazed piano chords from keyboardist Eric Harvey, Daniel barks out wild lyrics over a Talking Heads-like, impending doom rhythm. “I’m writing this to you in reverse/Somebody better call a hearse” is quite the opening couplet, and the song is ferocious from start to false finish to actual finish. At this point, Transference hits its groove.

The run of songs from there on is a wild ride that shows the band’s versatility. They never seem to show any strain while zipping between extremes, whether they’re going on a Television-like guitar spree at the conclusion of “I Saw The Light” or dropping a dreamy lullaby like “Goodnight Laura”. Euphoric rock like “Trouble Comes Running” deftly mixes with the mid-tempo melancholy of “Out Go The Lights.”

In most cases, Daniel’s lyrics, while typically offbeat, hint at the darker side of romantic entanglements. Even when he’s singing about the salvation of love in the pedal-to-the-medal “Got Nuffin” (“Got nothin’ to lose but darkness and shadows/Got nothin’ to lose but bitterness and patterns”), the music, which in this case cops its furious groove from the Chicago warhorse “25 Or 6 to 4,” turns his musings dark and desperate.

If there is a thread running through the album, it’s an unnerving feeling brought about by the tense, taut arrangements and intangible musings of the lyrics. The closing song, “Nobody Gets Me But You”, bubbling along on a Rob Pope’s “Another One Bites The Dust”-inspired bassline, tries to make a stab at contentment in the final moments, but the pervasive unease from what precedes it wins the day.

As a result, Transference might be a hard sell for those who came about thanks to the hummable horn lines from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga that the band displayed in their SNL appearance. But the new album casts its own spell when given the opportunity, yet another great effort from this fantastically original band. At least that much is predictable when it comes to Spoon.

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