A spoonful of sweet rock

 

Making it in the music business is hard. Lasting in the music business is harder. And then there are some who not only last, but also manage to carve themselves a niche so tight that it comes with a built-in cult following. In psychedelic rock, you will find The Flaming Lips as a textbook definition of that. In rap metal, you will have Insane Clown Posse, which perfectly fits that bill. And, in indie rock, you get Spoon. For nearly 3 decades now, singer/guitarist Britt Daniel, drummer Jim Eno and various bandmates have been gracing the stage with their blend of crafty indie-rock-pop that never fails to seduce the listener(s)…

And they’re back! That’s right: 5 years after 2017’s rather successful Hot Thoughts, the band is back together for a celebratory 10th outing. The reason it took so long (there are usually 3 years in-between Spoon albums) was, of course, the pandemic: recording had effectively started before lockdown, but then got significantly harder. One of the reasons for that is the production choice made on this one to go back to the roots, if it were, i.e. go for a live-sounding album, with the band playing together at length in the studio. This was aided by the fact that producer Mark Rankin, of Adele and Queens of the Stone Age fame, was an adept of bare-sounding tracks. You can see how this could go wrong…

In the end, the recording may have taken 2 extra years — with Daniel ending up writing no less than 30 songs from which the final 10 were selected — but it’s all well worth it. Lucifer on the Sofa is a tight selection of highly cohesive and, dare we say it, extremely Spoon-esque songs. Lead single “The Hardest Cut” is a clear standout here, with its infectious/nervous energy, that is somewhat reminiscent of Queens of the Stone Age insofar as it blends in blues rock with hard/metal elements — with that riff following the chorus worthy of The Stooges… Other songs on the album are arguably lighter and more pop sounding, such as “Satellite” or “My Babe”, but they all come with that same Spoon shine: the mixing of various instruments — and vocals — is always crispy clear, which makes those tracks all the more delicate.

For the key aspect of Spoon’s work is always the subtle crafting of each and every song, from start to finish. Take the delicate chord change at the beginning (spoiler: and end) of “The Devil & Mister Jones”: it creates a beautiful anticipation of melodic things to come. This is the kind of attention to detail that Spoon fans have come to expect from the band — and have been consistently rewarded for it. This time is no different: so run to your record shop (i.e. Spotify) and play that sh*t! Sorry… stuff!