Gimme Fiction : Spoon : Review : Rolling Stone

Austin quartet Spoon turned out workmanlike indie-rock records for eight years, until 2002's irresistible, groove-driven Kill the Moonlight took them to another level. Tracks like "My Mathematical Mind," on their new album, Gimme Fiction, recapture what made Moonlight great: retro-leaning piano melodies, simple two-beat rhythms and Britt Daniel's cocky, deadpan vocals. Elsewhere the band veers into vastly different territory: The sexy four-chord stomp of "I Turn My Camera On" sounds like a Queen song with Michael Jackson on the mike. Lyrics vacillate between fairy-tale storytelling ("The Beast and Dragon, Adored") and unforgiving self-reflection. The overall effect can be vaguely schizo -- many of these tracks seem more like cool fragments than true songs. Still, as Daniel sings on the opening track: "It's not what you expected, but it could be right."