After three decades, Spoon are undoubtedly masters of their craft. Having fully absorbed all their obvious influences from the Pixies to Tom Petty, they have a style that is identifiably their own. The idea now is to enrich and to find enough variations to keep the music fresh and moving forward. While their last album, 2017's Hot Thoughts, added electronics and even a drum machine, Lucifer on the Sofa has a more stripped-down guitar band sound. Vocalist/guitarist Britt Daniel and drummer Jim Eno recorded in Austin, TX, where the two had co-founded Spoon in 1993. Daniel moved back a few years ago (followed shortly after by guitarist/keyboardist Alex Fischel) and Eno's been running his Public Hi-Fi Recording studio there since 1998. They felt Austin would re-energize and inspire them, and Eno's studio would provide recording scheduling ease. (In the title track Daniel directly references the city: "Now you're thinking about Dale Watson/ Thinking about Turquoise/ All along West Avenue/ While those Blackbirds make their noise.") Given the strength of the new material here, the decision to make an album in Texas for the first time in a decade has worked out. The opening cover of Smog's "Held" is paced by a sharp, snaky guitar line and passing electronic squalls. Guitars in a loopy, low line with edged weapon accents drive "The Hardest Cut." Always a thread in their deep catalog, Daniel's inclination to add a pop turn now and then surfaces in the bouncy, "The Devil & Mister Jones." A different, though still accessible turn completes the love song stomp, "My Babe."
Mirroring the band's career arc, Lucifer on the Sofa gets stronger as it plays on. Eno's drumming, one of the pillars of the Spoon ethos along with Daniel's voice (which remains in elastic shape), comes to the forefront in "Feels Alright," which along with the succeeding track "On the Radio" is 2022 Spoon at their very best: rhythmic, still urgent, and with sly hooks that have just a dash of raw punk edge. In "On The Radio" when Daniel asks, "They say, 'How come you still play that game, John Britt?" the answer, which answers every "why" about Spoon, is in his next line: "'Cause I was born to it." © Robert Baird/Qobuz