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

Alright, I've got some explaining to do. By now anyone who's visited this blog is well aware of how infrequently I've used this space in recent years; aside from the occasional fertile year of content, I really haven't posted all that often over the last five years or so. There are many reasons for this, which have already been outlined in previous apology posts; but, essentially, it boils down to my own laziness and the cold reality that blogs are, like Refused (again), fucking dead. So, I wouldn't hold my breath for a triumphant return to reviews, or even semi-regular posts, but: a) I feel like Year in Rock posts have always belonged here and, even though I've experimented with different methods of presentation recently and been satisfied, the "blink and you missed it" unveiling via Facebook stories this year was perhaps ultimately a disservice to the records I lauded. After all, cramming the list into short videos isn't too far off from ju...

Year in Rock 2011 Nominee: Sam Roberts Band

SAM ROBERTS BAND I Feel You From: Collider Released: May 10 Having already endured the breakout success ( Brother Down was Canada's it rock song of 2002), the tentative dabbling in the U.S. market, as is the rite of passage for all moderately successful Canuck artists (2003's debut We Were Born in a Flame was the best time to try; one of the best albums of the year, it made a small dent in the American mindset upon its release there a year later), the difficult, druggy third album (the aptly named 2005 disc Chemical City ), and the subdued creative step backward (2008's Love at the End of the World , aside from hit single Them Kids , was really kinda bland), it seems according to script that Sam Roberts would start settling in on his fourth album (and first with the band credited as equal contributors), Collider (you know, I think it was a bad idea to give me brackets). Well, as far as settling in goes, Roberts does and doesn't on Collider . W...

IN REVIEW: Rancid - "Trouble Maker"

As far as punk rock goes, it's hard to name a hotter hot streak than the trio of records Rancid cranked out between 1995 and 2000; the star making ...And Out Come the Wolves , the far-reaching Life Won't Wait and their balls-to-the-wall second self-titled album solidly positioned Rancid as leaders of the second generation of punk. It also preceded a period of slow progression, as Rancid would take eleven years to release their next three records. By the time ...Honor Is All We Know came in 2014, many fans (myself included) had to wonder whether or not this was the end of the road. Such concerns are handily dealt with on the closing track of the standard edition of their ninth record, the positively punishing This Is Not the End . Well, okay then, that's sorted. Now, what of this new record? What do we make of the use of their original logo on the cover, a logo that hasn't graced a Rancid record in 25 years? Is this a throwback to the band's heyday, a new begin...

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