It’s been three years since Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Spoon’s most triumphant release since 2002’s Kill the Moonlight, the album that contained, for better or worse, The O.C.-baiting “The Way We Get By.”
On Transference, we find the Austin-based rockers with another set of hook-heavy songs that seem destined for fall television soundtracks on the CW (I wouldn’t be surprised if “The Mystery Zone” was written with Gossip Girl in mind). That’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially when Britt Daniel’s detached falsetto (“I’m writing this to ya in reverse/Someone better call a hearse”) sounds like a pitch-corrected Stephen Malkmus. Spoon even takes a stab at electro-rock on “Who Makes Your Money” and the primitive dance-floor anthem “Nobody Gets Me But You,” and it all seems to work. It’s classic Spoon with a dash of psychedelia, all of which adds up to another solid rock ‘n’ roll album by a consistently great rock ‘n’ roll band.
