Spoon expands its territory with 'Transference'

Dive verdict: 4 of 5 stars

The difference between Transference and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Spoon’s 2007 top-ten charting smash, can be summed up with a look at each album’s piano-driven number.

Ga’s “The Ghost of You Lingers” is a creepy, crawly piece where repetitive baroque chords form a rhythmic background for Britt Daniel’s haunting, reverb-drenched ode to a lost love. It’s earnestly emotional, but still incredibly aware of just how cool it’s trying to be.

Transference, on the other hand, sports “Goodnight Laura,” a sweet, Beatles-esque siren song that calls its exhausted heroine to bed. Daniel’s croon is calming and sympathetic to a party girl whose grand evening turned out to be a total bust.

Similarly, the rest of Spoon’s subdued but experimental new LP comes off as the end result of the raving pop hooks of the Austin quartet’s last outing.

Dropping the consciously chic fun, Spoon has created an album that’s like the somber drive home from Ga’s party.

Melodies form more gradually, vocals and guitars echo with subtly nuanced effects, and emotions coalesce from careful introspection instead of bursting forth in a triumphant roar.

For instance, “Who Makes Your Money” strides into life with an ambling bass line as Daniel quietly explores the way people use each other before the title question echoes in like the conscience of a half-guilty trophy girlfriend. It blends quiet psychedelics with warmly inviting pop to create a song that doesn’t sacrifice style to revel in delicate feeling.

And while not everything here keeps it to a low volume, the band takes its time when it builds up to the big crescendos.

“Written In Reverse” slowly builds a rumbling guitar-and-piano stomp to the brink of insanity, patiently cranking up the intensity on guitar licks and bass thumps as Daniel’s vocal ratchets up to a beastly snarl.

Even on the more obvious singles, Spoon eschews the classically oriented rock ‘n’ roll structures that roped in much of its last effort.

“Got Nuffin” rides the same bass-driven groove throughout, building the rest of the instruments into insistent, forward-moving alternative rock. It’s like Radiohead in a classic rock dive bar, and it’s made all the more thrilling by that inversion of expectations.

So, all told, Transference is a left-field move. It acknowledges the smartly accessible tricks that have driven Spoon to the brink of true mainstream success and then sidesteps them to push the band’s sound in new directions.

It’s bold and unexpected, and while it might not always result in raging pop thrills, it never ceases to be interesting and invigorating. And that’s more than enough to keep Spoon at the fore of modern rock bands.

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