Spoon-Gimmie Fiction

If you’re like me, Spoon’s 2002 release “Kill The Moonlight” took you completely by surprise. Typically, most bands become too bitter, too fractured to really rebound from a major label dropping. Their fans, typically, become too uncaring of such a drama to really give a shit about a band having their feelings hurt by the aftermath of a R.I.F. at WEA. Being dropped by a major was probably the best thing that ever happened to Spoon: “Kill the Moonlight” plays like a classic on the cusp of larger acclaim. In short, it sounds like a call up from the farm league rather than an effort of a band who’s time in the majors had come and gone.
And for that Cinderella story, Spoon suddenly found themselves the dubious distinction of trying to top themselves. Considering how good “Kill the Moonlight” was/is, it’s no shock then how their latest, “Gimme Fiction” comes up a few songs short of “Moonlight’s” majesty. That much you should know before entering into their latest, but it shouldn’t prevent you from hearing what they’re doing now. Because any band that possesses as much knowledge about rock music as Spoon does, deserves to have more attention than Soundscan currently acknowledges.

While “Kill the Moonlight” examined some insanely catchy medlodic patterns, “Gimme Fiction” replicates that direction with the electric guitar stepping up, front and center. There’s less of a cut and paste feel to the album, but it’s still a little difficult to understand why it took nearly three years to come up with it. I mean, I probably would have been thrilled to death if “Gimme Fiction” took a year to make but the shear fact that after all this time, the forty-four minutes represented here is the best that they came up with, well, it makes me feel a little disappointed. There’s a sense of some songs just on the verge of being finished and a few more songs that feel like they could’ve gone just a few steps further. “They Never Got You” is a prime example of this. It’s a song that maintains a new wave chord progression, but fails to really build a memorable agenda and after three minutes, you’re tired of the whole track. “Merchants of Soul” follows suit, this time with a neat piano pattern that once again fails to get past the idea that it may have made a nice bridge in some other song if they’d put some extra time behind it. There’s also a few Anglophile elements spattered throughout the entire effort but it only points to the sad fact that there’s a ton of other bands out today that focus their entire musical direction on post-punk Britpop and they’re doing a better job than Spoon is of replicating it.
Just when you’re a little testy about it, they’ll throw in a few songs that would fit right at home on “Moonlight” (“My Mathematical Mind,” “The Delicate Place,” “The Infinite Pet,” and “Sister Jack”) and then add a few that actually build upon that album. “Was It You” sounds a few yards away from a Talking Heads song and “I Turn My Camera On” may be the reason why this album suddenly reaches a few more music fans. If anything, I’ll bet you there are a ton of cellular phone manufacturers that would pay top dollar for this song to be playing underneath commercial images of their new camera phones. There’s a reason why marketers would be drawn to it: because it’s a crafty little pop tune that posses more heart in a mere three minutes than most contemporary soul songs do in an entire full-length outing.

“It took its time a-working into my soul/I got to believe it came from rock and roll” Britt Daniel sings on the opening track, “The Best And Dragon, Adore,” and “Gimme Fiction” took its sweet time hitting the streets. The members of Spoon have a good understanding of their rock history and their passion for it is prevalent throughout the new album. I’m still a little pissed at why it took so long to get released, at the same time, I’m glad it’s finally here.