Spoon tries a ‘Transference’ of style

Spoon

Transference

Merge Records

Rocks like: The Strokes… Spoon

Transference

Merge Records

Rocks like: The Strokes channeling Pitchfork’s “Best of 2008” list

Grade: B

For most of the past decade, Texan quartet Spoon has found itself being pulled in two opposing directions. On one hand, the band has been rooted in the indie crowd for most of its career, where it is regarded as a groovy, Southern-tinged Pavement. The trend of the past several years, however, has seen Spoon drawn toward more mainstream acceptance, as evident by its work’s inclusion in everything from “The O.C.” to “Cloverfield.”

Transference is Spoon’s seventh LP — its fifth within the past ten years. Although the band’s last album, 2007’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, with its rhythmically driven pop and punchy singles, might have placed the band firmly on track for further commercial stardom, it ironically has backtracked a little with its latest release. But only a little.

Not much has changed in terms of the band’s songwriting, helmed primarily by vocalist Britt Daniel and drummer Jim Eno. The most jarring difference between Transference and Spoon’s previous few albums lies in the sound itself. The band has moved away from overly crisp production values and toward a lo-fi sound reminiscent of its earlier work.

Clocking in at just short of 45 minutes, the result is largely a mixed bag. Tracks such as lead single “Written In Reverse,” with its crunchy, staccato guitar and harmonized vocals, benefit greatly from this treatment. Songs like the piano ballad “Goodnight Laura” do not. Although undoubtedly a solid album overall, Transference’s most disconcerting weakness lies in the absence of a truly great track. None of the songs are particularly bad, but there is nothing that reaches the immediacy of “The Way We Get By” or “I Turn My Camera On.” Tracks like “The Mystery Zone” might aspire to those heights but end up sounding above average at best.

Whether or not you consider Transference a step forward or backward for Spoon hinges largely on your opinion of the band’s last several albums. If you admired the band’s work when it was signed to Matador Records and Elektra, it’s likely to be a welcome surprise. If your introduction to the band was through the “Stranger Than Fiction” soundtrack, it’ll probably leave you scratching your head.