Spoon are one thing above all, and that is
dependable. I suppose you could also call them
minimalistic, which they certainly are for a rock band, but after five critically lauded albums, none of which really departed from their central style,
dependable makes more sense. We're going to be seeing a lot of Spoon on this list (they're up there with Radiohead in the critically-respected game) but it's hard to think of things to say about them; they practice an uber-cool kind of rock music that apes the atmosphere of jazz if none of its content. Everything is simple, instrumentally minimal, and catchy. The problem with
Girls Can Tell is that the style works more as a straitjacket than anything else; I can hardly tell any difference between the first five tracks on this album at
all, and after the nifty little organ-led ballad "Anything You Want" there's another six or so songs that hew so closely to the same sound that you can't tell them apart. Now, sometimes, that's okay. Clientele's
Suburban Light certainly is just as, if not more, monochromatic in style than this one is and that one comes out a near-masterpiece. But that one has atmosphere and this one doesn't. It's just a series of slightly jazzy rock songs; there's little of the synth that the band would add to their repertoire on
Kill the Moonlight and none of the horn overdubs they threw in on
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. It kind of sounds like a slightly more upbeat National at times, and that's hardly something anyone needs.
MY RATING:
6.1
Spoon - "Lines in the Suit"
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