Courtesy Loma Vista Recordings
WORDS Brian Carroll
Coming as they do from a consummate “album band,” new releases by Austin five-piece Spoon are considered gratification for the Beatles / Stones camp, Classic Rock radio lovers let down by post-9/11 music culture. The group’s last LP, Transference, explored a prickly anti-pop domain only to be overlooked by the general public, an inevitability that disappointed the already drained band. After a hiatus, recharged at least to a smolder, the band hired MGMT producer Dave Friddman to help them explore the other side of their coin: commercial appeal. They Want My Soul, the band’s anticipated ninth album, is being touted as their most accessible release to date.
Often described as minimalist, Spoon eviscerates large sections of fat from their songs to exert a fascinating self-control, unlike bands like The XX or Low, who start small and stay there for a discrete purpose. When faced with the candy shop of production gimmickry available to today’s well-funded Rock band, Spoon doesn’t so much opt out as engage in musical bulimia. Hearing what they keep in and what they omit is part of what makes engaging with their albums a ritual and enduring pleasure.
Masters at staying on the bucking bull that sends lesser mid-level groups hurtling either to a sanded-down commerciality or nebulous nowheresville, it would appear you’d be wise not to doubt them, but is the new album an overcorrection?
Bookended by bland, harmless filler, They Want My Soul is a real seven-ten split. “Rent I Pay” is a simplistic caricature of their earlier work, so to see it rushed out as both the first track and single points to one of Spoon’s weaknesses: not always understanding what people like about them. Another potential red mark is that the group, guided by the distinct brand of their new producer’s sound, has responded to the cactus-like, angular dryness of their last release by pushing themselves into a lush (but cold) Modern Contemporary world, one in which their edges have been nearly too smoothed out for the comfort of the inner hellion that lies at the heart of Rock and Roll.
As much as you might fear the misdirection the band could go from here, they’re not there yet, singer Britt Daniel anti-heroically snarly and personable as ever. He goes to great lengths to adhere a dissatisfied humanity to the windexed production for balance. The problem is that drama-rich They Want My Soul promises to be about something: society, social media, the NSA, Youtube commenters, haters, hipsters, hamsters, zealots – The trope of THEY – and a soul in peril, but Daniel seems too distracted by an unrelatable NYC heart-stomping to focus, splitting the narrative to such an extent that you wonder if the tracklist wouldn’t best be served as two brilliant, five-song EP’s.
Thankfully, Britt’s mojo-less spirit aspect evaporates at just the right times on record, such as when he delivers a life-affirming suckerpunch to Zach Braff on “Outlier.” Despite strategic missteps at play, Spoon’s overall craftsmanship is keen, and while taking fewer risks, they still elaborate on old sonic ideas their fans wished they would, headphone-ready scorchers like “Knock Knock Knock” showing off the same dizzying cut-and-paste doodad editing chops of Gimme Fiction’s “Was It You?”
“Do You,” the album’s second single, is such cyclical fun that you could Doot-Doot-Dit-Do It on repeat for hours and just get lost in it, like all of Spoon’s best songs. Also darn good is the incredulous early-Beatles-via-Ann Margret cover, “I Just Don’t Understand,” a straightforward rendition of the vampy, ragtime-tinged waltz that flirts with Zombies – of the Argent variety - yet continues to fly further sunward toward the heat of The White Album’s “Yer Blues.”
Single three, “Inside Out,” is fresh oxygen, its semi-sloppy Chinese harp scales endearing rather than irritating. Meanwhile, buried on the B-side, little gem “Let Me Be Mine” takes a straightforward Power Pop beat and twists it into an Alan Parson Project before dropping down to a moonlit forest for sublime owl hoots in the breaks. That’s good weird, a great example of how Spoon likes to climax in a cinematic fashion, preferring to use the last track (in this case, the gross synth dance tune “New York Kiss”) to roll credits by rather than leave the audience hanging.
The band’s burnout preceding this release sounds like it’s been well-bandaged. Producer Friddman may have cobbled a swift and decent Spoon album, an infinitely more popular cousin to their last, but it’s hard to shake the sense that there are a few hairline cracks in the vacuum, with generic Eighties and Nineties Top 40 seeping into Spoon’s carefully curated world. The few sour tracks from the band’s prior releases may have been too odd, but they had character, unlike the blah that threatens to shade They Want My Soul’s short tracklist. Musically still very worthy, but a missed thematic opportunity, a last minute lyric restructuring might have been enough to make it a bona fide classic from the band. As it stands, it’s just another feather in their cap.
They Want My Soul is best seen as an incremental improvement, or minor comeback, if you will. “Do You,” now enjoying airplay, shares real estate with several well-adorned, equally strong friends. If you like Spoon, listen to the whole thing, get as obsessed with the act as a Spoon release demands. Bands of Spoon’s caliber and pedigree are rare on today’s radio, so grading them solely upon their latent capabilities can make criticism misleading when they still destroy ninety-nine percent of their competition. Longtime fans will admit that the band is capable of better work, but not too much better.