“Out amongst the stars and the stones/Every kinda fortune gets old,” sings Texas band Spoon vocalist Britt Daniel on album number eight, They Want My Soul . The follow-up to 2010’s Transference , Spoon continue to steady their course as one of the more consistent creators of indie rock in an industry that’s increasingly swayed (both listeners and musicians) by throwing in an odd electronic sample or a bass drop.
Regardless of their peers, Spoon’s fortune certainly isn’t getting old, not when they’ve got an album like They Want My Soul .
The album kicks off with the drum-led ‘Rent I Pay’, set to a sharp snare hit from drummer Jim Eno. Spoon are as colourful as ever, always letting the clean guitar riffs do the talking, while trippy noises creep up out of nowhere. ‘Inside Out’ has a dash of melancholy, ending with a shimmering keyboard loop. There are more unexplained, delightful noises on ‘Rainy Taxi’, with Daniel’s immediately-recognisable raspy vocals cutting through. Their second single, ‘Do You’ moves into peppy rock, clap track and acoustic guitars included. If that doesn’t get you humming along, get prepped for ‘Knock Knock Knock’, with its unmistakably sinister synth cropping up over a whistled tune.
They even throw in mad, screeching guitars in the second verse, which just goes to show that Spoon can fill in spaces like few other bands.
They pick up the pace on ‘Outlier’, where Daniels throws in an indie reference – talking about how a date walks out of the movie Garden State, saying she “had taste”. That’s a warm welcome for long-time and new fans of Spoon’s indie world, where dreamy keyboards meet crisp guitars and roomy drums. Daniel even suggests on ‘Let Me Be Mine’, “You're gonna take another chunk of me with you when you go/Go ahead and take another chunk of me, yeah just go.”
With an album full of songs like They Want My Soul, we wouldn’t have it any other way.
