"Gimme Fiction" is actually Austin, Texas outfit SPOON'S sixth album, but until getting turned onto the band's recent single "I Turn My Camera On", Britt Daniel's boys had been merely a name your reviewer had heard in passing.
However, if the remainder of their canon thus far is as strong as "Gimme Fiction", then some strenuous backtracking is in order, for this album is an intriguing critter. It's recognisably poppy, but with twists, chicanes and hairpin bends aplenty and suggests Britt Daniel has a way with obliquely brilliant songwriting that puts him up there with Bob Pollard and (almost) Jeff Tweedy.
"I Turn My Camera On" suggested Spoon might be vaguely associated with the whole punk-funk thing that continues to orbit the current pop world, but its' stuttery voyeurism also set it apart, and it sounds every bit as clammy and unwholesome in this company. In "The Delicate Place" and "Was It You?", it has a couple of equally fascinating half-sisters too. The former is rhythmic, descriptive and just dying to let rip with some bleeding, discordant guitar, while "Was It You?" is a nocturnal slice of sparse and moody Talking Heads-style funk and almost as spooked as "I Turn My Camera On."
Indeed, it's clear throughout that Britt Daniel excels where edge and atmosphere are concerned. Opener "The Beast And The Dragon, Adored" mixes and matches an obscure title Bob Pollard would love with clicky guitar figures, ominous piano chords and an overall sensurround that could be loosely categorised as 'power pop' but with the sort of underlying dissatisfaction inherent in the best of Big Star and Nada Surf. It's matched by gripping songs like "My Mathematical Mind" and the closing "Merchants Of Soul", too, where strident piano and rolling, tom-heavy drums lead the way instead of the expected guitars, although the end results remain extremely danceable in a fractured kind of way.
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The album's one near-linear 'hit single' moment, though, is surely the upbeat cruise of "Sister Jack". Although even this remembers to release some odd, discordant guitar swarf so it doesn't get too lonely, it's still a bouncy and recognisable anthem and could briefly even be confused for Fountains Of Wayne. Don't panic, though, it's only a momentary thing. Besides, the scrubbed acoustics and bumpy drums of the ensuing "I Summon You" soon shakes you out of sugar-coated popsville.
None of which is to say Britt Daniel and Spoon (really Daniel, drummer Jim Eno and talented guests) are in any way anti-pop refuseniks. "Gimme Fiction" hoards sharp hooks as well as oblique angles and simultaneously seduces and challenges. Which is a result in anyone's language if you ask me.
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