Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Spoon, Matador Records 2022.
Spoon have been around for 26 years and they’re still going strong.
They hail from Austin Texas and with Lucifer On The Sofa they have gone for a harder, rockier edge.
It’s the first album that Spoon has recorded in their native state, Texas, in over 10 years and it was written and recorded over the last few years while they were in and out of lockdown.
Spoon has always been tuneful, and the catchy melodic hooks are still there but on Lucifer the production has been stripped down substantially, compared to their last album Hot Thoughts (2017), with the emphasis being shifted to guitars and bass riffs and a pared back sound that’s heavy on the bass and full of space.
Lucifer On The Sofa is their 10th album, 11th if you include the best of, Everything Hits At Once – The Best of Spoon, and the Lucifer album is their first new material in five years.
The band actually started recording tracks for Lucifer On The Sofa back in 2018 and by 2020 they pretty much had it finished.
COVID intervened and the release date was originally put back to early 2021 but as we know Omicron put paid to that and so it slipped over into 2022.
Spoon have often been compared to The Pixies and Pavement with their indie-art rock leanings, but I also hear hints of The Beatles in their melodies and arrangements and even Crowded House. It’s the melodic influence.
I really like what they do and this latest album is the best I’ve heard from them in some time.
Some of the standout tracks on Lucifer on The Sofa are: Held (tight guitar riffs and bass interplay), Wild (they channel INXS), The Hardest Cut (great groove and chorus harmony).
There are good clips for some of these on YouTube.
If you haven’t heard Spoon I recommend the best of album; you get all the well-known songs in the one package.
But I will definitely be ordering my copy of Lucifer on The Sofa.
