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Home / Entertainment

Album Review: Spoon, Hot Thoughts

Karl Puschmann
By Karl Puschmann
Freelance entertainment writer·NZ Herald·
1 Mar, 2017 05:05 PMQuick Read

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Album art for Hot Thoughts, the new album by indie group Spoon.

Album art for Hot Thoughts, the new album by indie group Spoon.

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.

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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.

Hot Thoughts
(Matador)
Verdict: Spoon serve up dirty disco-grooves and comfy dad-rock

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