Spoon has never been content with being just another utensil in the drawer. Throughout their 23 years as a band they’ve tinkered with the indie rock formula in ways no other artists could—nimbly dancing across genres as varied as Pixies-style hard rock and orchestral chamber music while somehow still carving out a distinct, Spoon-sized place in the music industry.
Spoon fans have been conditioned to expect the unexpected with each new album Britt Daniel and Jim Eno release: something quintessentially Spoon, but with a new twist every time. For their new album Hot Thoughts, however, it’s less of a twist and more like a being thrown headfirst into the sonic equivalent of The Upside Down. Synths lasering across yawning expanses of haunting silence (“WhisperI’lllistentohearit”), blunt drum beats pulsing behind dramatized vocals (“I Ain’t The One”), twinkling bells glinting around distorted layers of sound (“Hot Thoughts”), and more push the band boldly forward towards a sonic landscape never before traversed. Luckily for fans, lurking just beneath Hot Thoughts’ psychedelic surface are the crunching guitar riffs, hyper-specific lyrics, deceptively simple rhythms, and idiosyncratic vocals that propelled Spoon to the top of the indie rock pyramid more than 20 years ago.
The most notably experimental songs off Hot Thoughts come in the form of “Pink Up”, the album’s longest listen at nearly six minutes, and album closer “Us”. Spoon is no stranger to instrumental tracks—the bluesy rocker “This Book Is A Movie” from Girls Can Tell comes to mind—but these are the first in which guitar takes a backseat. On “Pink Up”, maracas, xylophones, and throbbing synths create a soup of tropical jazz through which Daniel’s fuzzy vocals slice. After a moment of silence for the vaguely political chorus “Everything you think we are, we are/We come to mesmerize/Everything you fear we are, we will be”—pink pussy hats are certainly one way to pink up—the song crescendos in a thick haze of percussion, piano, and breathy sighs. Though the dreamy groove largely vanishes for tracks six through nine, it floats back in full for the final five minutes of the album to create “Us”—a blend of blazing horns and jungle-inflected rhythms that should be on the soundtrack of every dramatic nature documentary.
On the other end of Hot Thoughts’ sonic spectrum lies “Tear It Down”: a synth- and jazz-free peppy piano ditty that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness’ debut. Though the song serves as an anti-Trump message (“Let them build a wall around us/I don’t care/I’m gonna tear it down”), Britt Daniel expertly evokes a sense of saudade through detailed lyrics such as “I was trying to get out of town/You passed in an ambulance/We were in a trance/And now we’re never gonna meet/But I feel you anyway.” Set against the cheery background of the piano, Daniels’ message is affecting in its quiet defiance; however, its similarities to material on Spoon’s 2014 album, They Want My Soul, distract from the album’s experimentation with the surreal side of indie rock. Thankfully, “Shotgun” finds the perfect balance between Spoon’s newfound electronic direction and the classic indie rock rhythms and witticisms fans love—“You and me dreaming ‘bout full medical and dental” establishes relationship dynamics more fully than entire songs by less adept artists. And with Rob Pope’s masterful riffs engaged simultaneously in constant competition and perfect harmony with Dave Fridmann’s production—particularly during the bridge’s all-too-short sonic argument meant to mirror the couple’s in-song troubles—it’s the ultimate intersection of indie rock rhythm (Jim Eno’s drumming shines here as well), dance-pop beats, and radio-ready flair.
Unusually for a Spoon album, Hot Thoughts finds itself with a trio of songs seemingly tailor-made for the airwaves: “Do I Have To Talk You Into It “, “First Caress”, and “Can I Sit Next To You”. Boastful drums, unnerving piano loops, and repeating guitar flourishes lend a toe-tappingly anxious air to “Do I Have To Talk You Into It”—the musical equivalent of uncertainty. “First Caress” also benefits from a waterfall of Alex Fischer’s minor chords, albeit for a lighter purpose—“Angel, my love, my first caress/I come back and I find you never changed,” Daniel smirks of a former flame. The back-to-back tracks are nearly polar opposites—one is nervous where the other is confident, one longs to be loved where the other’s achieved it—but their differences only serve to highlight the individual appeal of each song. They’re just asking to be played on a loop. “Can I Sit Next To You”, however, doesn’t ask: it demands. Over a strutting beat and dizzyingly theatrical synths—it’s Phoenix meets Phantom of the Opera—Daniel’s confident rasp wonders, “Can I sit next to you?/Can you sit next to me?” Accented by arena-ready claps, it’s pure dance-rock bliss wrapped up in a glittering black bow.
Spoon is unquestionably one of the most innovative bands of the past two decades, so naming Hot Thoughts as their most experimental work yet is a bold claim. But with funky jazz, space-age synths, pounding dance beats, and even a little tropical breeze blended into their signature indie rock sound, calling it anything less would be close to laughable.
Luckily for both the band and their legions of dedicated fans, Hot Thoughts’ risk-taking largely pays off and is an exciting indicator of where this eclectic group may go in the future. However, if there’s one thing Spoon has made clear, it’s not to get too used to any one of their plethora of sonic identities. Just when you think you’ve got the band nailed down, they inevitably find a way to shake everything up.
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