Album Review: Spoon, Hot Thoughts

On their ninth album, veteran indie greats Spoon show they're as musically restless as ever. Even when exploring the well-travelled genres they venture into here.

They push their sound into dirty funk, disco-rock, indie and, most comfortably, dad rock.

It's the latter genre that provides some of the album's highlights, especially the jaunty piano-led grooves of Do I Have to Talk You Into It, the Wilco-esque Tear It Down and the 70s soaked melancholia of I Ain't the One.

But it's not all slippers and whiskey. The band also confidently turn their hands to some effortlessly cool danceable numbers.

It's hard to sit still to the disco-swagger of the title track, the throbbing bassline and scratchy funk of Shotgun and the stomping indie-pop groove of First Caress.

This is undoubtedly a solid, groovy and somewhat low key return for Spoon.

Though the group's hardcore fans might have expected more experimentalism and polish after the three-year wait for Hot Thoughts, the album proves that sometimes it's best not to overthink these things.