Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 09/07/07
Label: Anti

In a bitter twist of irony, Texan quartet Spoon are unfortunate in the company they keep. Much like The Zombies, Big Star, Guided By Voices and Teenage Fanclub, they walk the fine line between insanely catchy melodies and left-field sensibilities with an ease that should be a guiding light to lesser talents rather than achieving an appeal best described as "selective".

Indeed, Spoon's continued placing under the radar of mass consciousness is one of rock'n'roll's greater mysteries. And yet, in a world where Razorlight manage to fill arenas and news of Oasis' imminent return to the studio sends shudders of expectation among the faithful, there remains a feeling that maybe, just maybe, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga" will be the album that finally gives Spoon the recognition and adulation they so richly deserve.

It isn't hard to see why. As displayed by the bounce of "The Underdog" and the stabbing, punctuating horns that propel it, this is music high on the potential of life and its sense of wide-eyed awe is utterly infectious. Elsewhere, the strummed gems "Rhthm (sic) And Soul" and "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb" find Spoon encroaching on Wilco's more recent pastoral territory.

Lyrically, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga" is frontman Britt Daniel's most direct work and the sense of anger and frustration that runs through it like a vein of discontent is palpable. Opener, the languid "Don't Make Me A Target", makes its intentions clear from the start, Daniel's railing against the "Nuclear dicks with the dialect drawls / That come from a parking lot town where nothing lives but the sun". The pain of heartache is almost at odds with the driving piano motif that fuels "The Ghost Of You Lingers" to create an effect not unlike LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends" standing stripped, naked and exposed.

It's precisely this balance between verbal antagonism and musical sprightliness that gives Spoon their edge. For example, "My Little Japanese Cigarette Case" outflanks Fountains Of Wayne in terms of both observation and a sonic dynamic that acknowledges Pixies at their most menacing, with a result capable of prompting both a rush to the head and a pause for thought. This is music for the head and the heart and such a collision can only have a positive effect on both your feet and the continuing expansion of Spoon's horizons.

    by Julian Marszalek