Spoon 'They Want My Soul' Album Review

If you’re making your first album in four years, why not hire two hotshot producers rather than one? Spoon are one of those bands with a familiar name, but precious few well-known songs, apart from ‘The Way We Get By’, featured on the soundtracks of both The O.C. and the Will Ferrell movie Stranger Than Fiction. Here, Joe Chicarelli and Dave Fridmann sprinkle their fairy dust on Spoon’s eighth album – their first since Transference in 2010 – coaxing the best out of a band who have always been floating on the margins of the mainstream.
They Want My Soul opens with the arresting snare drum of ‘Rent I Pay’ from Jim Eno and a beautifully snarled vocal from Britt Daniel. Songs such as the aptly titled ‘The Underdog’ have a brass-heavy swagger and immediacy that sets them apart from Spoon’s sprawling back catalogue, while the monstrously funky ‘They Want My Soul’ is another highlight. 
The ambient ‘Outlier’ is refreshingly different again. The Malcolm Gladwell book of the same name posits the theory that like The Beatles in Hamburg, a band require 10,000 hours of graft before they can become truly great. Active since 1993, this outfit from Austin, Texas have surely put in the hours by now. They Want My Soul might just provide the crossover success that has eluded them to date.