In the two years leading up to the release of Transference—Spoon's seventh studio album—Spoon has been faced with the lofty task of following up their own perfection. Their previous release, 2007's formidable Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, was about as conclusive a punctuation mark as it gets, the full-bodied conclusion to the skeletal sketches they'd slowly perfected throughout the preceding 13 years. If there was any room for improvement left in their airtight creases or minimalist instrumentation, they didn't show it.
Michael Jordan faced a similar crossroads in 1998 after solidifying himself as the greatest basketball player to ever play the game. Fresh off his unprecedented second ""three-peat,"" his airness left the sport at the top of his game. He had accomplished everything he should have and won everything he could have. There was no place for him to go but down. And in 2001, that's exactly what happened.For many, his return attempts with the Wizards several years after his championship runs marred his legacy. The indomitable super-freak became an insufferable legend, constantly lurking in the foreground and stunting the growth of several players before they could reach the limelight.
But make no mistake: Transference is no stint with the Washington Wizards.
On record, frontman Britt Daniel often sounds bored. The core of his detached vocals often border on disdain, as if he's annoyed by the pesky task of singing and grudgingly aping through the songs only so he can get back to whatever else he was doing before. But on songs like ""Written In Reverse"" and ""Trouble Comes Running,"" he evokes legitimate spite. He's still not happy, but instead of this being an excuse to escape to less arduous activities, he channels his malice as a reason to stick around for a while.
Those focused events are still the exception, but they ultimately provide the album with incredible pacing. Just as ""Who Makes Your Money"" starts to drift, ""Written in Reverse"" shoves it back into line. And just as that starts to get a little too punchy, ""I Saw the Light"" takes a step back and calms the scene. And that call-and-response mechanism repeats throughout the album's duration. ""Trouble Comes Running"" sounds the alarms, and ""Goodnight Laura"" puts all wearies to rest before ""Out Go the Lights"" serves as a soothing wake-up and transition to another rousing dosage in ""Got Nuffin."" Transference is an intimidating scope of peaks and valleys, but consider Spoon a pack of mules hired only to make sure your trek is painless.
Over the course of their career, Spoon have solidified themselves as the most dependable name in modern indie rock. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga cemented them in the halls of indie rock lore, and it's hard not to receive the inner tidiness of Transference without thinking the band is gloating.
If their victory lap has any pot-holes, though, it's that it is a little too passive to demand immediate attention. Although it's no more minimalist than any of their other albums, its highs and lows are not as pronounced as they once were, making it easy to gloss over without exhausting too much enthusiasm. In that way it's a background record, sure, but Transference also rewards closer listening. The contrasts are less subtle, but they're well-defined and pronounced. It's a listener-defined record in that listener participation marks its boundaries. Where Spoon's off-handed ambiguity once existed between clearly defined lines of instrumentation, here they blur the lines and let the obscured presentation morph to fit its external context.
What makes Spoon's story especially unique is the way their fan base has transformed. Once merely a venerable band that every indie kid could agree on, they've taken on a new audience in adult contempo. But unlike Wilco, they've done so without sacrificing any of their signature sound, and without losing any of their indie cred. On the surface, Transference is a smooth record that will fit snugly between Death Cab for Cutie, the Shins and whatever other indie-gone-adult contempo bands frequenting your father's car stereo, but its inherent substantive qualities and covert hostility will still demand repeated exposure from the staunchest, most curmudgeonly indie kids as well.
It has often been said, ""It's better to burn out than fade away."" But in some rare cases, people are given the opportunity to shine brightly for years past their apex. And even if Transference doesn't open the clouds to reveal a higher ceiling of trumpeting children and grazing cattle, the very fact that the height of Spoon's mountain doesn't drop off to a heap of hazardous waste is more than any honest fan could expect. It's not like the journey to Transference was all that difficult, but as long as we're here we may as well sit around and enjoy the view.
