Spoon: Transference (2010)

(Merge)

RECOMMENDED

Well, here's a surprise: an album by Spoon of the kind of stuff Spoon is good at -- classic-sounding, melodic, razor-sharp boyish rock music. Transference is the band's seventh album; it's as consistent and enjoyable as any of the others. As ever, the band comes off as professional and exceptionally competent, everything coming in the perfect size and dosage -- the vocals break just enough, the atmospheric numbers rollick just enough and the rollicking numbers vice versa, the hooks all pass easily through; the record feels remarkably like listening to modern rock radio in the days when it had some level of decency. "Written in Reverse" is the ideal example, a blissfully controlled vocal and just the right muscle to its easygoing swagger.

Merge Records' cofounder Mac McCaughan once said of hearing Spoon's Girls Can Tell in a bar that the record came off with such a classicist charm that he briefly mistaked it for the Rolling Stones. Spoon does indeed come across with the relaxed confidence of the Stones in the '70s; you can hear it in this album's "Out Go the Lights," the sort of laid-back, addictive late night mood piece that was unveiled so effectively by the Stones at their tightest, or "Goodnight Laura," a classic circa-1973 mood-piece ballad. Spoon periodically displays the reverence for punk that one often assumes is the hallmark for bands in their position, but as on "Got Nuffin," it's always without pushing too hard, always with a certain respectable distance that keeps any strain from seeping through. (On a mostly unrelated note, is it me or does "I Saw the Light" sound like it should have been on the soundtrack to Disney's Jungle Book?)

The consensus on Transference seems to be it's a weaker album than Spoon's prior efforts on Merge; the slight discordance of growth here and there aside (love the studio twiddling on "Who Makes Your Money"), I don't really see the big difference. This band always seems to offer what's expected; the grooves are pleasing, but they're airtight and almost too dispassionate. It's actually possible to hear "Nobody Gets Me But You," here positioned as the danceable climax, and mistake it for a slow burn stoner romp. Though not boring, Spoon's records feel like background music to me; they sound excellent while they're on and it's easy to get caught up in them, but it's difficult to remember much about them after they're over. I don't mean this critically though; I love background music.