By: Brianna Pulver, Layout Editor
Spoon definitely waited their turn to release a new album, but the real question is: did they release it on March 17 so I could make a stupid pun about a pot of gold and the color green when I wrote its review? Probably not, but Spoon fans got lucky anyway. They Want My Soul, released in 2014, showed a much more expressive side to Spoon, and people completely fell in love with it. Having waited nearly three years to hear what was to come after that visceral, emotional album, we were finally handed Hot Thoughts.
Their ninth studio album swayed more toward magnetic musicality, shifting perspective in each song like a hall of mirrors. With its tangy strings and choppy keyboard, the album is packed with soft but staggered sounds. Britt Daniel, Jim Eno, Rob Pope, Eric Harvey and Alex Fischel worked hard and well to stun us with their new take on sound. This ten-track album brought an ethereal tone to their familiar stretchy, carpeted music. Songs like “WhisperI’lllistentohearit,” “Do I Have to Talk You Into It” and “I Ain’t the One” offer us a distance from reality, almost limping on the speakers, while “Tear It Down” and “Pink Up” give us that emotional pull.
Britt Daniel, lead singer and guitarist, wrote most of the songs for Hot Thoughts, with help from Ted Taforo (saxophonist—co-wrote “Us”), Laura Pergolizzi (pop singer—co-wrote “Tear It Down”), Sean Dineen (co-wrote “Shotgun”) and Alex Fischel (keyboardist and guitarist for Spoon). Hot Thoughts is one of Spoon’s more charged albums, not really focusing on a specific speed or direction. It’s unsure of whether or not it wants to be rhythmic or poppy, electric or jazzy. So instead of deciding, the album talks it out, reaching highs and lows and those places in between, really stitching the songs together. It builds the parts like a rollercoaster, smoothing its edges until its finish, where the album ends on a creamy jazz coda.
Hot Thoughts is the album you listen to on a long drive during the summer, windows down and volume cranked. Spoon really resurrected the complexities in their individuality, playing upon each member’s strengths and interests.