It's a good thing when bands don't stick to the same formula over and over again. There's nothing worse than stale music. However, Spoon has managed to change the formula and make an overall flat-sounding album, Transference, at the same time.
"Before Destruction" is a raw song that has a demo-like quality. The sound is far away and consists mostly of Britt Daniel's rasping vocals and jagged acoustic guitar strumming.
"Is Love Forever" takes a page from The Strokes' guitar playing book with a bouncy and punchy but ultimately boring riff. Too much robotic factory precision. The most interesting part of the song is the psychedelic reverb on the vocals.
"The Mystery Zone," musically at least, sounds a lot like the funked-up mid-'70s "Miss You" Rolling Stones. An intricate bass line anchors the song and the guitar and keyboard echo play off that.
"Written In Reverse" is one of the better songs on the album and surprise, surprise it's the current radio single. The rhythm here isn't too geometric and this allows some of the raw soul elements that have always been part of Spoon to come back. The percussive piano and Daniel's impassioned vocals help as well.
"Goodnight Laura" is a melancholy piano lullaby. This may be the only song on the album that's pure melody instead of pure rhythm. This song is somewhat reminiscent of live solo piano performances from Neil Young.
"Got Nuffin" came out last year as a radio single and on a lackluster EP of the same name. The song itself has an enjoyable slow burning guitar riff. In hindsight, this is somewhat of a precursor to the sonic approach this whole album takes but it doesn't quite go off cliff like other songs.
"Nobody Gets Me But You" is almost electronica. The drums are definitely "enhanced" and the only other prominent instrumentation is a funk-like bass riff.
While not without its bright spots, Transference definitely favors rhythm at the expense of melody. Good music needs both or you end up with the cold results the majority of this album ends up with.
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