The Thousands

The fact that this is the first self-produced Spoon album was a surprise to me. They’ve always been so ridiculously full of sound-purpose and sound-awareness. As you might expect, it sounds just as good as anything they’ve paid some dude with a massive beard and a concerned look on his face to record.

There are exceptions to this though, most clearly in the oddly Who-esque track ‘Trouble Comes Running’, which could well have been in danger of being pedestrian if not for the unexpectedly sparse and widescreen-style mix. The key here lies in the songs themselves.

There are some delicate moments and more mood-focused stuff in the vein of ‘The Ghost of You Lingers’. To balance this out though, there are a couple of songs that are as straight as a spoon can be. ‘Is Love Forever’ has an amazing minimal drunken pound of a beat that directly counters the song’s title and central question. ‘Written in Reverse’ is ferocious; and ‘Got Nuffin’, the single released months before the album, is as straight as I’ve ever heard them, and it’s f*cking wonderful.

Yes!