Spoon has never paid much heed to consistency. The band’s first four full-length albums were grab bags of indie-pop sounds, as if they weren’t quite ready to settle down with a style of their own. On Transference, they have finally settled, and the result is the most cohesive album of their career.
Transference starts like a long, abstract medley; the first four songs don’t really end. They run into each other, stopping on a dime and starting just as quickly. Spoon is able to take simple ideas and expand them into progressions that walk the line between epic and funky. On “Is Love Forever?” the band takes the beginning of a drum fill and loops it, surprising the listener with its odd sense of rhythm. By track five — the bluesy “Written in Reverse” — the album becomes more conventional in structure, yet the theme remains the same: deep, sweaty funk and blues layered with indescribably sweeping tones (check out the mysterious “Before Destruction”). The second half of the album gives center stage to singer Britt Daniel’s biting lyricism; there is something beautifully nostalgic about his musings in “Out Go The Lights,” very believable about the demons he reveals on “Got Nuffin,” and almost desperate in the rock n’ roll thump of “Trouble Comes Running.”
On Transference, the band proves that they can balance consistency and experimentalism, an idea that is lost on much of the indie-rock universe. In finding this balance, Spoon has not only discovered their sound, but also expanded their genre.
4.5 stars
Spoon
Transference
