IN REVIEW: Spoon - "Lucifer On the Sofa"

 

Spurred by relocating back to Texas and getting interrupted by a pandemic during recording, Spoon's tenth album was a long time coming; its nearly five year gap from previous outing Hot Thoughts marks the widest gap between albums to date. These events also led to a refocusing of the band's sound, leaning into a looser, more rock n' roll aesthetic. It's possible, actually, that Lucifer On the Sofa may be the purest rock record Spoon has ever created; that's not to say that this record is a wall-to-wall fist-bumping anthems, but there is certainly less atmosphere and sonic world-building than we've heard from the traditionally restless explorers in quite some time.

It's not necessarily a bad thing, especially when these excursions into more traditional rock territory are as thrilling as The Hardest Cut, a downtuned, sludgy boogie that plays like a meaner and more well-spoken incarnation of ZZ Top. It's a true outlier in Spoon's discography, but one that also plays into their greatest strength; even when straying well outside of their comfort zone, songs like The Hardest Cut come out unmistakably Spoon. This is also true of opener Held, which is a cover of a 1999 song by Smog that is transformed such that it feels like a Spoon original (to be fair, Spoon used to play it frequently in concert). There's also the jangly, Stones-adjacent The Devil & Mister Jones, which drips with that familiar Spoon swagger while offering us a sound they haven't quite gone for before.

Past this place-setting opening trio, things settle into what one could consider more standard Spoon fare, albeit mostly leaning toward their rockier tendencies; Wild layers on grooves and slashing chords as it builds to a life-affirming, piano- aided second chorus that sends the song through the clouds. My Babe, as tritely titled as it is, blooms into a groovy mid-tempo slab of euphoria that comes off far less cringe than that title might imply. Side B opens with the effortless cool, strutting Feels Alright and the piano-led classic rock throwback On the Radio before moving to the tender, airy Astral Jacket (which, in addition to acting as a reprieve, feels like a chilled-out sequel to 2014 hit Do You). Then, we get the dark and subdued Satellite, which had been attempted for the aforementioned 2014 album They Want My Soul but left off and reworked here.

The closing title track is the longest song on the album, and it may be the most striking closing track they've produced (and this is a band that ended their last album with an out-of-left-field jazz instrumental); Lucifer On the Sofa glides on reverbed drums and electric piano while Britt Daniels croons about the eerie emptiness of cruising the city alone, the world at a standstill. It's obviously referencing the pandemic, but doesn't do so in the ham-fisted way so many other songs have in the last couple of years. Daniels draws parallels to the end of a relationship, wondering what to do what the subject's cigarettes and records and giving in to the darkness and loneliness.

While billing Lucifer On the Sofa as Spoon's "return to basics" record doesn't do them justice considering they're still trying new sounds (and still remaining completely themselves in the process), it's perhaps fair to reiterate it as their "soft reset" record; the beats-and-grooves, more layered and pop-centric curiosities of They Want My Soul and Hot Thoughts replaced with tried and true rock reinforcement. This makes Lucifer On the Sofa harder to dance to than their more recent albums, and perhaps a little less unique an entry in their portfolio, but it yet again proves Spoon's status as a band that's been far too consistent for far too long to not be considered all-time greats.

February 11, 2022 • Matador

Highlights The Hardest Cut • Wild • Lucifer On the Sofa