Spoon - 'Transference' (Anti-) Released 18/01/2010

Step into an album where melodies are loaded in by trucks, where studio production acts as its own instrument, where guitars are incisive and precise and where vocals fit the mood of each song with perfection. You’re listening to a Spoon album, of course. But which one?
 
‘Transference’ is another footprint from the same pair of shoes – it makes no evidential effort to turn the Spoon sound inside out. This is an album merely bolstering an already sturdy outfit. So, that decides two things; one, that it’s an accomplished follow-up in the band’s career and two, that it won’t bring in a crop of fresh-faced fans. But what’s to say Spoon won’t be looked back upon in years, decades even, with a universal appeal. After all, we’re talking about one of, if not the most confident and self-assured band on the planet. Why doesn’t ‘Transference’ give way to a new era? Because Britt Daniel and co. didn’t feel it was time.
 
And so what exactly is ‘Transference’? Well, it’s not the easy access point to the group’s discography (‘Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga’ will keep that crown) and nor is it a diverse, unpredictable and perhaps timeless work (‘Kill The Moonlight’ has featured highly in several end of the decade lists as of recently). It’s not full to the brim of anthemic touchstones to the career of the band. Nevertheless, this is yet another album to add to the collection; a carefully-calculated gathering of catchy, progressive rock songs.
 
Laid back attitudes and a pro-experiment approach to recording (running themes in previous records) keep their stance; notably so in ‘The Mystery Zone’, where Daniel prowls and growls within a growing wall of gradual ambient background melodies. Right there is a slight modernisation of the Spoon sound and such (it has to be stressed) slight changes are also found in the tremelo vocals of ‘Who Makes Your Money’ and the purposefully sudden break in recording from lo-fi to high-budget demonstrated in opener ‘Before Destruction’ and the noticeably rough-around-the-edges ‘Trouble Comes Running’.
 
The shifts are subtle and have to be sniffed out, but Spoon have begun to adapt to a new decade. Songs are at times softer and more synthetically-enhanced (‘Out Go The Lights’, ‘Nobody Gets Me But You’), at times jagged and more capable of speaker-blowing (‘Written In Reverse’, ‘Is Love Forever?’). There’s no venturing into the unknown, but there was never ever any need to do so in the first place?