Issue date: 2/4/10 Section: Film & Music

The band relaxes after releasing yet another studio album Photo: Spoon / Myspace

Spoon shows no sign of cracking under pressure Photo: Spoontheband / Facebook

The prospect of composing a follow-up to a critically acclaimed album is a daunting task for any band, a path peppered with anxiety-laden questions. Do you follow the same formula from your past work? Do you give your fans what they want? Or do you just listen to your own heart? Who do you choose to keep happy: your fans, the critics or yourself?

It is definitely possible that Spoon faced this puzzle, butit certainly doesn't show in the final result. Transference is their seventh studio album, following the admirable Gimme Fiction and the unassumingly catchy Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Forget following up one good album - they've done it twice already.

Transference begins with "Before Destruction," which sounds like new territory for Spoon: the clean guitar and drum rhythms are present but the chorus-like vocal arrangements take centre stage. This sets the tone for the next few songs - gone are the generally buoyant lyrics that we've come to associate with this sunny Austin quartet. Enter the philosophical musings of "Is Love Forever?" and "The Mystery Zone." During the jarring "Written in Reverse," vocalist Britt Daniel likens the blank stares of his partner in a doomed relationship to a fused light bulb. Depressed yet? I was.

But this album's strength lies in the union of pop and rockfor which Spoon has come to be known. "Got Nuffin" is the unabashedly poppy and optimistic song with a guitar riff that will undoubtedly be ringing in your ears for days. Ditto with the breezy hums of "Trouble Comes Running." The real surprise, however, occurs when "Goodnight Laura" comes along. This clean, graceful lullaby shows a sincerely romantic side of Spoon.

One part experimental art and the other cleanly crafted pop-rock tunes, Transference feels jarringly like two different albums, an admission that I make with more guilt than sadness. In the album's last song, lead singer Daniel coos that "nobody gets me but you"- a claim that is, personally, somewhat true: I get you sometimes, and I love you even when I do not. "I make my case to the world" sings Daniel, and there is something very admirable and ballsy about the band's foray into new territory, a spirit that has kept Spoon together for seventeen years. Spoon doesn't need a cherry bomb to go on and on - they'll stumble and glide and do it on their own, and their fans will surely follow.

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