Highly Recommended

Spoon - Transference

(2010 / Merge)
indie / indie rock / indie pop

"Up to this point, Spoon have employed their signature tight pocket grooves as a shorthand for authority, certainty, and swagger. It's one of the most appealing things about the band, and the sound has made even Britt Daniel's most vulnerable moments seem grounded and forthright. They've turned it all inside-out on Transference, subtly shifting the leading signifiers of Spoon-iness just so for a destabilizing effect. Their go-to trick for the first half of the album is to include bits of sound that abruptly cut off, usually sung phrases that drop entirely out of the mix mid-syllable. This may be aggravating for some listeners, but this counterintuitive move makes sense in context, indicating distraction and tongue-tied indecision. This is a perfect example of the group's genius as a studio band: They get very cerebral in arranging their material, but every clever move is entirely in the service of maximizing physical impact and gut-level response. These are not simply recordings of a top-notch rock quartet playing in a room; this is art built to hit precise emotional marks with an impressive balance of off-the-cuff improvisation and rigid discipline." (Matthew Perpetua, pitchfork.com)

My Rating: 7,5/10