Spoon

Transference

Merge Records

Grade: B

For most of the past… Spoon

Transference

Merge Records

Grade: B

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

Transference is Spoon’s seventh LP — its fifth within the past 10 years. While the band’s last album, 2007’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, might seem to have pushed the band toward further commercial stardom with the album’s rhythmically driven pop and punchy singles, Spoon ironically backtracked a little with its latest release. But just a little.

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

Clocking in at just short of 45 minutes, the result is 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 it’s undoubtedly an overall solid album, Transference’s most disconcerting weakness is the absence of a truly great track. While none of the songs are particularly bad, 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 try to 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’re an admirer of the band’s work when it signed with 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.