Twenty-five years or so since their debut, and five years since their last, Austin indie heavyweights Spoon return with the intriguingly-titled Lucifer on the Sofa – the latest in a long line of stellar records stretching back to 2001’s Girls Can Tell. The general narrative around the album seems to be that it’s their ‘back to basics’ LP; you know, the one where they’ve ditched the more experimental leanings of 2017’s Hot Thoughts (not to mention 2013’s commercial-high They Want My Soul) but a more accurate description is that it’s just another addition to the ever-growing list of great Spoon records.
Afforded more time due to the uncertainty of the last couple of years, these are songs that have been extensively developed before stepping foot in the studio – a process that harks back to the band’s earlier records – and allowed them to evolve more organically. It’s an approach that suits too, managing to capture a good approximation of the kind of tightly-wound energy the band bring to live performance. New bassist Ben Trokan certainly has huge boots to fill in the wake of the departed Eric Harvey, but immediately slots in the mix beside Jim Eno’s reliably lethal drums in a formidable rhythm section. Another worthy mention here would be the inspired addition of long-time touring guitarist and secret weapon Gerardo Larios as a full-time member of the band, bringing with him the kind of technical prowess that compliments the more instinctive pair of Britt Daniel and Alex Fischel.
As with any great Spoon record (i.e. all of them), there needs to be a real statement of intent as an opener. Much in the vein of previous openers like Gimme Fiction‘s ragged ‘The Beast and Dragon, Adored’, ‘Don’t Make Me a Target’ from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, or …Soul‘s ‘Rent I Pay’, the job of kicking things off here falls to an epic, lurching cover of Smog’s ‘Held’. As ever, it’s a masterclass in tension and release, and any lingering fears that this will be the Spoon record that finally disappoints soon sink beneath its swampy surface. I’m tempted to use a well-worn platitude like ‘they’ve never sounded so good’ but, in truth, they have and they always do, and that’s pretty much the modus operandi of Lucifer on the Sofa. This is Spoon at their most Spoon-like, sounding exactly like themselves, doing nothing that they haven’t done before, and yet still sounding fresh as fuck.
‘The Hardest Cut’ follows, and is a scratchy, sweat-drenched shuffle that might just be their best single yet. Not bad for album number ten. Tracks such as the widescreen Americana of ‘Wild’ (complete with some glorious swaggering piano chords lifted straight from the Rolling Stones), the singalong ‘On the Radio’, and coiled spring-like ‘Feels Alright’ do exactly what you want them to do, and in doing so feel as though every extraneous note has been squeezed out of them. ‘The Devil & Mister Jones’ promises a lot with its title, and promptly delivers in buckets with the kind of 70s-soaked groove that would not feel out of place next to something like …Ga’s ‘You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb’. All of this undoubtedly adds up to the leanest record they’ve made since 2002’s Kill the Moonlight, and arguably the most full-on rock record they’ve made full stop.
Each Spoon record seems to be a minor tweak on what’s come before, and in this case it’s the more stripped back numbers such as ‘My Babe’ and ‘Astral Jacket’ where it feels like Britt Daniel is a less-guarded presence than before. While his writing is rarely as obfuscating as, say, late-period Dylan, it’s still wildly disarming to hear him sing with such directness as he does on the former, or with such relative tenderness as he does on the latter. Both songs are, needless to say, beautiful, and much-needed moments of calm. ‘My Babe’ is an interesting track, as in any other hands it could so easily slip into mawkishness or even machismo, but actually develops into the kind of rousing chorus that feels utterly celebratory and impossible not to smile at. ‘Astral Jacket’ on the other hand, is a quietly transcendent gem of a song that paves the way for the record’s most dense and challenging number in ‘Satellite’. Complete with a screaming guitar solo that could have fallen straight off of a peak-era Pink Floyd record, it’s a strange and unwieldy beast that somehow feels as though it’s still shifting into evermore-shadowy shapes after ten or more listens.
Saving the best until last, the record closes out with the title track. Like all the best Spoon songs, ‘Lucifer on the Sofa’ is the kind of track that feels as though it has always existed. Coasting along on Fischel’s soft electric piano and some gorgeous subtle saxophone, to my ears it calls to mind ‘Nobody Gets Me But You’ from 2010’s underrated Transference LP, as well as the more esoteric Hot Thoughts closer, ‘Us’. It might just be the best thing they’ve ever done too, which really isn’t bad for a band approaching their third decade. All in all, I guess you could say that all of this is a very longwinded way of saying that it’s business as usual. Roll on album eleven.
Words by Adam G