Spoon - Hot Thoughts

i also thought it was coming out on Friday but turns it's a week from Friday. Same night i'm seeing Teenage Fanclub.

it's great to be me right now!

aaaahh hearing can I sit next to you and reading bee ok's post is totally making me book the london show!

There are few artists--much less rock artists--whose announcement of a new release makes me giddy, but Spoon fits the bill. Title track / single sounds great.

I am actually anticipating a new release, guys! It feels good!! I plan to go old school with this one: gonna show up to the record store right when they open next Friday, and then spend the afternoon driving around listening to this

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/03/sxsw-2017-day-1-photos-and-recap.html

Seeing Spoon play in Austin is a rite of passage of sorts. Aside from Willie Nelson, there’s hardly a more ubiquitous Austin act these days than this four-piece fronted by Britt Daniel. Tuesday’s 1am set at The Main—formerly “old” Emo’s Austin, and unofficially re-named “Eno’s Austin” for a 3-day SXSW Spoon residency, after current drummer and founding member, Jim Eno—was an epic kick-off for many attending the music portion of the festival.

Daniel’s live delivery could easily be mistaken for a studio recording; his voice is uncanny and he masterfully lost himself in tracks from Spoon’s eight album discography (“Don’t you Evah”!), equally as much as he did in tracks from the band’s ninth studio album, Hot Thoughts (out this Friday via Matador.) While 2014’s They Want My Soul, was often spectacular, it still had an aura of experimentation, and seeing the band enact the new material on stage felt like Spoon has now fine-tuned those experiments into a fully-formed sound that could only belong to them.

South by Southwest was the best place to enact these new concepts, especially in front of a hometown crowd. The band seemed to exude a certain comfort in letting loose in front of a familiar locale, in a seemingly controlled environment. While their curated set of openers, in A Giant Dog and New Pornographers, can easily serve as the peak of a crowd’s attention for the evening, Tuesday night was all about Spoon beginning to unleash Hot Thoughts to the world, in Austin’s buzziest week. To be able to do that in an environment where every detail was exactly as Spoon had planned out, is a powerful place to be as a band, especially when they’ve been one of the tightest, most well-executed acts in independent rock and roll for more than 20 years.

i'm so ready for this!

I see from the setlist above they have abjured the ilx poll winner (and the #2). Hope they don't change it around too much, seeing them in june and would love to get 'i saw the light' and 'do you'.

i like this album quite a bit

Jim Eno’s swaggering drums

It takes a certain kind of 45-year-old frontman to sing the phrase “knock knock” and still sound at least moderately cool, not like some phony in his first pair of Ray-Bans.

a toe-tapping tune about one of those ghosts that linger in Daniel’s head

do better, Pitchfork

also, so so tired of the "this song sounds like this popular band, while this song sounds like this popular indie band; meanwhile, this song sounds like this popular band" school of music criticism

i know what i'm listening to on my way to work today.

Wow, only made it through side one but blown away. How are they this good nine albums in? Most bands die out or just go through the motions.

I don't buy music anymore but going to buy this.

On first listen I'm not enjoying this as much as 'They Want My Soul' but it's good. TWMS is just a big FM Radio drive thing with tons of hooks where this is far more groove focused.

What a great band. I've never seen them live - need to correct that.

I've only seen them live once, London in early 2010 (reasonably sure I saw ithappens in the crowd), and they were v good. I'd see them again at the drop of a hat if they came with 100 miles.

Looking forward to buying this on the way home, too, obviously.

"I Ain't the One" is a good variation on a familiar Britt Daniel trope: don't touch me. More creepy electric piano and drum machine blues, plz.

More creepy electric piano and drum machine blues, plz.

This. Every time Spoon go down this road the results are great. 'Kill the Moonlight', arguably the quintessential Spoon record, is all over this theme. I love a lot of their output but that album has a very specific approach to empty space and keyboard bits, and in my mind it is the Spoon sound most realized.

Doesn't the bass in "Shotgun" remind anyone of 'At Home He Feels Like a Tourist"?

^^ this album is very kill the moonlight

xp

was really hoping first caress is a companion piece to last caress, but its not =(

I don't care for the closing instrumental -- yet.

Shotgun sound more like "I was made for loving you" than Go4 to me.

haha -- true, 'cept Daniel would never stoop so low as to think he was made to love anyone. His schtick is to question the idea of desire.

On first listen the first half of this album is OK but the second half is great.

The chord progression in 'I Ain't the One' sounds naggingly familiar, I'm thinking '70s pop like ABBA or the Carpenters or someone.

Very keen on this after brief exposure, much more so than the last one.

this is pretty good - it's less immediate which makes me think of Transference but it's got a lot more range than that one. Transference ended up being one of my favorites but it took quite a while

"tear it down" is my favorite one that i hadn't heard already. reminds me strongly of something but i can't place it

I think this is great, can't really remember the last one.

https://instagram.com/p/BRvwuSGDbeb/

i had a day today but was able to listen to the second half once. this album is going to be fun to discover. two instrumentals is so strange though.

who plays the saxamaphones on 'us'?

i don't think i even bothered to listen to the last spoon album, but i had a go at this while at work on friday and it was kinda fun! "first caress" was a banger

Really liking this one on first listen, could see it becoming one of my favorites.

TWMS was the first one I never quite grew to love (Transference didn't click with me initially, but, similar to ciderpress' experience, when it did, it really did). This one's really immediate compared to the past few, without forsaking the ear candy that I know will reveal itself over repeat headphone listens.

I have so little time for rock music these days, but Spoon is one of the few bands I always make time for, mostly because their albums consistently reward this kinda loyalty. It's also why I buy their albums without needing to hear them first; there is sure to always be at least a few tracks I'll enjoy enough to want to own.

On first listen the first half of this album is OK but the second half is great

I think after one listen I feel exactly the opposite!

Then again, one listen isn't really enough to say for sure...

and I think if the album has a dud, it's "Shotgun," which takes me back to that one summer you couldn't escape "Float On" no matter where you went

I forget what a wasteland this place in on the weekends. I wanna talk about this record!!!

"us" is great, spoon going full manhunter soundtrack

yeah if anything it's too short

I'm ot as high on it as I was yesterday -- the side closers drag and a couple other ideas don't work -- but Spoon albums take me a week to gestate.

Disagree about "Pink Up" dragging, one of the highlights of the record for me

yeah 'can i sit next to you' and 'tear it down' tower over the rest of this record for me but its still solid

On first preview, I S'd (ie. DLed) "Us" / D'd the rest of the album (as personal taste context, Transference was my favourite of theirs as a whole record, while "Inside Out" was only track on They Want My Soul that I cared for at all)

Just had a first listen. Best new album I've heard this year. Seems designed around the vinyl sides, with tracks 1-5 being a great mini-album, then #6 starts it up again with a slightly different sound.

Serious question: has this band ever made an album that was too long? Maybe A Series of Sneaks, but even the filler on that one has its charms... and I'm sure people will think I'm crazy for this, but the back half of Gimme Fiction (after "I Summon You") can be hard to sit through. Apart from that, though, some of the most consistent quality control of any band with their longevity.

^^^ totally agree with this (except maybe the part about Gimme Fiction, but even there you may be right)

also, most albums are too long

i went to Best Buy last night to look at some soundbars, mine has lost its bass speaker. will probably buy my new one on-line and not get at Best Buy. while i was there i saw this CD on sale for $8.99. i made an impulse buy and bought it. i think this is the first CD i bought in three years.

Have you just been downloading / streaming?

series of sneaks is their shortest album (it's also my favorite). haven't listened to them in a long time, but i remember the back halves of both girls can tell and kill the moonlight as slogs.

also telephono is their only album i have on lp and side a is great and side b is totally skippable.