IN REVIEW: Spoon - "Hot Thoughts"

As has been established at this point in their 20+ years of existence, Spoon is incapable of making a bad record. Even their missteps can be boiled down to minor gripes; on previous release They Want My Soul, though, I felt Dave Fridmann's in-the-red production style didn't do the songs justice, and as such was left just a little cold by a Spoon record for the first time... well, ever. So, on tenth record Hot Thoughts, Fridmann's been enlisted again. However, the difference this time out is that the songs seem more suited to our modern, loud times. There's a noticeable shift away from indie rock here, as the band explores a more rhythmic avenue for the majority of the songs. Beats pulse, guitars jangle, and there are a lot more background sounds happening here than on previous Spoon albums. It's not as though they've never experimented before, but this is the first time they've employed such an exploratory nature of such an extent; to be clear, there's very little to remind one of the group playing this music aside from Britt Daniel's unmistakable voice and the effortless cool of the songs themselves.

In this respect, we are still dealing with a band who routinely tosses around great hooks like a rapper making it rain; to be sure, Hot Thoughts has a sprinkling of undeniable, capital-T Tunes. Current single Can I Sit Next to You is a sweaty, disco-tinged head bobber with middle-Eastern promises courtesy of a massive keyboard hook. WhisperI'lllistentohearit and I Ain't the One are a pair of fully fleshed out, slow burning jams, the former featuring a sudden tempo change and the latter building steam as it goes. Do I Have to Talk You Into It might be the album's best overall song with its sleek and sexy rhythm holding up as more and more sounds come crashing down around it. Then, there's the title track, a song that has groove to spare and sets up the album's expectations beautifully.

Even in the context of such a wildly different Spoon record, there are a couple of stark deviations in the form of album-closing instrumental Us (five minutes of jazz fusion) and halfway marker Pink Up (which sounds like something Radiohead would bang out if they were in a happier place). As off-centre experiments on an album full of off-centre experiments, they can be a bit much to ask of longtime fans to take in, and while they're both fine in the context of what they're trying to accomplish as songs, I found myself less interested in them on my (many) repeat listenings of the album.

Perhaps Hot Thoughts is Spoon's way of trying to update their sound for a new generation of indie dance rock fans, but the fact that they've done so in such a drastic way while continuing to please an old coot like me speaks to a more undeniable truth; Hot Thoughts proves that, no matter how unfamiliar a place Spoon may try to take their music, they simply cannot escape their talent for writing great songs.

March 17, 2017 • Matador
Highlights Do I Have to Talk You Into It • Can I Sit Next to You • I Ain't the One

Year in Rock 2025

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