Having me objectively review Spoon's new album, Hot Thoughts, is akin to asking me to find something I don't like about coffee. So I write this as a ludicrous fan of the band who has been impatiently waiting a couple years for new music.

Spoon doing what they do best is to snake around a groove until you get up and dance or spontaneously make a baby. Read any review of Spoon's records, and you'll notice the tendency writers have to use "S" words to describe their sound: slinky, sultry, snaky, sexy, seminal, sassy, shake (as in "yo ass") etc.

Embracing a domination of keyboard sounds along with Jim Eno's swinging backbeat, Hot Thoughts offers up 10 tracks of what I can only assume are more of Britt Daniel's unique ruminations on sex and love — some obvious, and others a little murky.

"Can I Sit Next to You," or as I like to call it, "Emotional Rescue version #69," has the cool beat and punctuated guitar riffs we found in Gimme Fiction's "I Turn My Camera On" and "Inside Out" from They Want My Soul. Both of those older Spoon songs I have often said I could listen to and undergo major surgery without anesthesia.

"Tear it Down" leaves your ears feeling sticky with a mighty catchy chorus. Same goes for "Do I Have to Talk You Into it?" The song "Shotgun" is a dark, driving tune with Daniel imploring, "You're the one who brought the shotgun / You're the one who made it no fun."

Hot Thoughts closes with the introspective sounding instrumental "Us," which is maybe the one song I could live without.

Lyrically, the words on Hot Thoughts are oblique, suggestive and probably assume a completely different meaning to singer Britt Daniel than to us as listeners. That's cool with me; a little mystery never hurt anyone. For the die-hard Spoon fan, you can safely store Hot Thoughts in your collection knowing that the band from Texas delivered a dang good record.

It's virtually impossible for me to hear and see Britt Daniel and not imagine if Buddy Holly had been born in the 1970s, this might be exactly the kind of music he would've made.

Resources

Spoon - official site