Spoon – 'They Want My Soul' review
In 2010, Spoon were announced as officially the best-reviewed band of the noughties after a five-album run of uncontroversial, quietly intelligent American indie-rock cast them as the decade’s most reliably 4-star band. They Want My Soul is their first album since that run, although, as befits a band famed for consistency, the four-year wait hasn’t affected their sound.
Accordingly, we get juicy heartland-rock Springsteenisms (the title track), motorik krautrock diversions (Rainy Taxi) and the kind of synth-driven tuneful epic destined to soundtrack the credits of the next soppy/angsty Michael Cera movie (New York Kiss), all delivered with impeccable musicianship, sleek production and the kind of enjoyable self-confidence only possessed by a band eight albums into its career.
Unfortunately, though, Spoon’s professionalism is also their undoing: however well-chiselled, accomplished and tasteful They Want My Soul might be, there’s an uncanny sterility to the album’s proficiency that makes it hard to imagine anyone truly falling in love with it.
7/10
