Spoon: Kill The Moonlight : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

With Kill the Moonlight, Spoon complete their transformation from ragtag rockers into beat-driven post-punks. Moving beyond nondescript indie rock, the Austin band offers groovy midtempo ditties and carefully layered rhythms on its fourth album. On "The Way We Get By," frontman Britt Daniel's repetitive, monosyllabic lyrics intertwine with hand claps, tambourine, piano and a spare bass line to create an art-funk science project -- it's an exercise in the limits of syncopation, but it's also jazzy fun. With his raspy even-keel croon, Daniel comes off like a sly, dispassionate Joe Jackson on "Something to Look Forward To" and "Jonathon Fisk," both of which draw upon New Wave and the Kinks. On songs such as "Stay Don't Go," which couples a human-beatbox loop with a dirty guitar riff, Spoon balance cool mechanical noise with analog warmth. Groups such as the Liars and Radio 4 mine similar territory, but Spoon put a gentlemanly spin on the sound.