Lucifer On The Sofa

  Two decades into their career, Spoon return with loud, low-down, melodious rock record almost without sacrificing any of their savory nuance and inscrutability. 

If music were clothes, Spoon’s would be a fitted shirt; they named a 2001 song after one. Their preppy sternness and the intermittent submission to supervised anarchy—so much depends on the erotic allure of Daniel’s six-string squalls, manipulated with the ease of a casanova who has calculated the impact of a messy kiss. His chalky bray, an amalgam of Texas country dudes and English pubsters like Nick Lowe, is a match. Assisted by recruit Gerardo Larios and multi-instrumentalist Alex Fischel, the loudest songs reek of sex. On “Satellite” Daniel becomes a lonely planet boy in orbit around a beloved, wagging his finger: “I know where you draw the line/I know what you draw it for.” The title track centerpiece, an aural sequel to They Want My Soul’s “Inside Out,” observes a flâneur cruising up Lavaca in skinny-ass jeans hearing Dale Watson tunes in his head. Like Bryan Ferry in Roxy Music’s “Street Life,” he hears poetry in white noise. Sampled sax bleats echo the traffic; Fischel’s electric piano lines reflect the blue mood.

 — Pitchfork