SPOON
Telephono/Soft Effects EP
Merge
· Reissued ’90s albums reveal Spoon’s formative sounds.
Before they had cultivated their glacially cool attitude, Spoon played angry, archetypal yet sporadically excellent indie rock. Perhaps they were fairly pegged as The Pixies and Pavement imitations in this era of their output, but the mathematical minds behind the Austin, Texas act were undoubtedly budding beneath the surface.
Telephono starts with a moment of silence, before the jagged guitar spikes of "Don’t Buy the Realistic" come into focus. The bubbling bassline brings Kim Deal to mind and when the song transitions into "Not Turning Off," Britt Daniel’s frenetic falsetto and wails of "woo" provide some of Spoon’s silliest moments. Nonetheless, the album sounds a little too much the same overall, with only two other tracks ("Nefarious," for its catchy chorus and "Primary" for straight up kicking ass) sticking out from the ranks.
With Soft Effects, despite the fact that it’s only 15 minutes long, Spoon clearly overshadows their debut. "Mountain of Sound" is a hypnotizing, head-bopping harbinger of an opener. "I Could See the Dude" breaks out the awesome arpeggio, while "Loss of the Leaders" is a stylish, swinging lo-fi closer. Best of all, "Waiting for the Kid to Come Out," sounds like a classic the first time you hear it and will have you singing along every time after.
LP 3/5
EP 4/5
JESSE LOCKE
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