There is New Spoon: Band Gets Emotional on Transference

With their seventh studio album, Transference, Spoon have solidified their standing among the finest independent musicians alive.

And it's not even that they're stretching themselves. Transference, unlike their previous but equally outstanding album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, is decidedly more modest in its scope and composition. They are still building on the keyboard-driven minimalist sound that dominated their earlier work, but unlike Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, which used horns and melody to broaden the scope of their songs, here they tend toward a different kind of experimentation.

Take for instance "The Mystery Zone," which, in a lot of ways, is extremely similar to the songs on their first few albums. Britt Daniel's lyrics are still haunting and dissonant:

"Make us a house some far away town where nobody will know us well where your dad's not around and all the trouble you look for all your life you will find it for sure in the mystery zone"

His voice, though tuneful, always acts outside the melody, making him sometimes hard to follow. "The Mystery Zone," however, is punctuated by a rhythm guitar that is at once simple, consistent and beautiful - giving the listener something to cling to besides Daniel's voice, which never does quite what you want it to.

The album builds further. "Who Makes Your Money" is also similar to the synth-driven songs that pepper their repertoire. However, where as these songs were often static, "Money" is moving. Daniel's singing is more emotive than ever, and the background vocals he loops (Daniel acted as co-producer) are somewhat ghost-like. There's something almost heartbreaking about this song - so much so that despite its repetition Daniel never finishes the syllable of the last word in the title.

Though the music on Transference is a return to the simplicity of their earlier work, there is an emotional crux to the album that adds layers to its complexity. Songs like "Nobody Gets Me But You" and "Out Go the Lights" are a new break for Daniel, whose lyrics, though always deft and clever, have seldom strived to elicit an emotional response. The musicianship often parallels the emotions that Daniel seems hesitant to inflect in his singing (see the crashing and angry grand piano in "Written in Reverse").

The ultimate result here is not quite concept-album, but not entirely inane either. Spoon is at once returning to their roots while elevating the evocativeness of their songwriting. The scope of the music at once becomes sad, tuneful, robust, a little angry and never far from a resonant emotional center.