Gimme Fiction

A lot has been said about the staying power of this band, surviving through the mid-90s indies-on-majors-kill-off to wind up releasing their best record, and perhaps one of the best records of the last ten years or so, Kill the Moonlight in 2002. Spoon has easily proven to the masses that the sophomore slump is for amateurs and that you don’t have to be born in the 80s to make relevant music in the 00s.

Gimme Fiction is more akin to the stellar Girls Can Tell from ‘01 than its predescessor, with its more traditional song structures and instrumentation. But as on Moonlight the band shows what can be achieved through musical understatement. You won’t find any pinwheeling Pete Townshend histrionics or five-string bass chopsmanship on this record - Britt and Co. opting more for well placed scribbles of guitar noise, and almost sub-aural bass plucks. Lyrically and vocally, Britt Daniel has never sounded so confident of his rather narrow and nasal range, and on a few of the funkier tracks he jumps to a solid falsetto - doing his best white-boy-Al-Green.

While I must say that Moonlight will ultimately leave a stronger impression on me, Gimme Fiction is destined to be one of my favorites for the year and is a standout addition to their fiercely strong catalog.