Since their urgent, refreshingly scuzzy and dryly spastic early days on Matador and Elektra, Spoon proved that there was still plenty of life left in the post-Pixies model. Then, in two deft swipes with Kill the Moonlight and Gimme Fiction on Merge, they found the greatest comfort of feverish extreme extrapolated from core self—taut and rhythm-based, the former was reduced to the barbed, husked essentials and the latter was the varied, warts-and-all reverberations built upon hyper-sensitivity to those essentials. Brilliant records both, and perhaps never to be topped, but should we decide one day that we were simply spoiled, we may rewrite the route Spoon has navigated since those days. But what strikes me most dispiritingly is that the last two Spoon LPs, 2007’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga and this year’s Transference, are their least endearing, ensnaring and exciting albums to date. Those dizzying extremes pushed to the breaking point on their best full-lengths weren’t nudged further; they were reinterpreted, as if their newfound bravery caused the itch for exploration that resulted in them cowing themselves into murkier waters, moored at last into areas they haven’t mastered (or never should have ventured in the first place). Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga was described as the band’s “pop album,” but had precious few immediate pop winners (and just as few that eventually grew to heights they once made seem effortless to reach). Transference is the ugly side, dominated by grainy texture, insensible outbursts, and wandering focus, and it requires a very specific spirit to make such hostility palatable (even in a tentative state).
Could the younger, brasher Telephono lads have done it? Probably not, at least not in this package, where they confuse experimentation with maturation. “Sloppy” wasn’t a criticism in the early days; “half-formed” slightly more so but beside the point. Here, the “sloppy” and “half-formed” segments don’t mingle with the more polished and professional accents. It’s a more cerebral undertaking where Spoon’s earlier work seemed to erupt from the heart and gut. Most of the angles here seem too plotted and disengaged, which is particularly surprising since on the first listen or two, they actually feel imprecise and reckless. Most notable are the ways that songs build upon and pare away instruments with almost exhaustless freedom and how several cuts, especially early on, end very abruptly (that’s not quite accurate—they don’t really conclude at all, but are simply interrupted by either a patch of silence or the left turn of the next track). The concise way that Spoon once sewed up the loose ends have transformed into a fetish for fracturing. Consider also “I Saw the Light,” with two strong (and similar) motifs tied by their base distinction but lack purpose beyond its artificially artful surprise: lumpy but driving gravel rocker dissolving in a snap to the bare beat at whisper level. It’s somewhat satisfying, yes, but also more than somewhat mystifying.
It doesn’t bode well for Transference’s future that the opener is among the least inspired. Even on the underwhelming Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, “Don’t Make Me a Target” emerged a grabber (and the album’s choicest cut). But this disc’s leadoff, “Before Destruction,” corners its slow, limping beat with various semi-psychedelic accoutrements like ghostly harmonies and disembodied whirls—a patchwork assemblage of ill-fitting ingredients that result in wavering and uncomfortable shifts in dynamic. The matching doesn’t compliment, the pace feels leaden, and it never coalesces as one hopes into something magnetic worth repeating. The band simply lacks the ostentatious flair to pull off such grand gambles. In the album’s second half, the overlong “Out Go the Lights”’s momentum is even more mordant, with an extended instrumental coda that has a recognizable pulse but no blood. “Goodnight Laura” as a piano ballad is neither delicate enough to qualify as warm soft light or hooky/melodic enough to be a charming ditty—the chords are already too fragile to be muted by washed-over clangor. Even closer “Nobody Gets Me But You,” benefiting from one of the strongest, robo-funk beats on the whole album, begins meandering towards the finish line (that, gasp, comes to a stalting halt). At least its first line is honest, considering the vague and abstract phrases Britt Daniel huffs out with regularity here: “Nobody gets what I say.”
But since Transference doesn’t even come close to flirting with disaster status, Spoon is far too surefire in their ambitions and honed in their skills to offer something between misbegotten and fairly good. Uneven as it may be, there are still nuggets to be gleaned (more, in fact, than their last effort, though the consistency issue still leans in the other direction). “Is Love Forever” is brief and fleeting, but the beat cracks are a quick tonic to the aimless opener. “The Mystery Zone” refreshes their maximum R&B aesthetic with a nimble rhythm dodged by wobbling synths that sound like misshapen strings banking and plunging. “Written in Reverse” finds Daniel howling with passion, but in ways more curious than stirring; the couplet “I’ve seen it in your eyes, I’ve seen you stare/And I wanna show you how I love you but there’s nothing there” is effective, but using, “Someone better call a hearse” (apparently) just for the rhyme is unfortunate. As such, you can’t get a grip on why Daniel feels a need to shed his confident gaze for bonafide zeal, but the pounding backbeat and keys offer one of their typically strong rhythmic confections. As for the disc’s hookiest offering, “Got Nuffin’” will already be familiar to fans from the same-named EP last year.
There’s much to admire on Transference, but its splintered approach leaves a mess to rummage through. This is an album that rewards numerous replays—I’ve spun it more than a dozen times now trying to discern why I don’t like it more—but it never connects the dots between the odd irresistible thump and tingling guitar figure into a wholly admirable piece. There’s frustration readily apparent in this outfit as melodies wander and shift, tunes refuse to shrink before locking out, and a tone of exasperation furrows over the logic defiance of the verbiage, so it shouldn’t be too shocking that an album of its name projects those feelings to the listener. The instability just doesn’t mesh with the drum n’ bass-esque power beats they relish. At least the core remains intact and the sporadic winner will keep you revisiting—disappointing, yes, but not disillusioning.
"Transference" is on sale January 19, 2010 from Merge.
