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Track Listings
| 1. Small Stakes |
| 2. The Way We Get By |
| 3. Something To Look Forward To |
| 4. Stay Don’t Go |
| 5. Jonathon Fisk |
| 6. Paper Tiger |
| 7. Someone Something |
| 8. Don’t Let It Get You Down |
| 9. All The Pretty Girls Go To The City |
| 10. You Gotta Feel It |
| 11. Back To The Life |
| 12. Vittorio E. |
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk
Often stripped down to keyboard and handclaps, teased effect-laden guitar and tight drum patterns, these songs show a pleasing economy--and it's a brand of minimalism that allows frontman Britt Daniel's enigmatic lyrics to take centre stage. There are some instant pop moments: "The Way We Get By" is a fluffy take on the hedonistic sentiments behind Iggy Pop's "Nightclubbing", Daniel singing "We found a new kind of dance in a magazine/ Tried it out, it's like nothing you've ever seen" in his honey-sweet drawl. But Spoon specialise in the unusual. "Stay Don't Go" keeps rhythm with a human beatbox and tambourine, while "Paper Tiger" is pieced together from back-phased effects and shivering violins. Adventurous but listenable, fans of the Flaming Lips and Pavement could do much worse than look to Kill the Moonlight. -- Louis Pattison
Review
And yes, that's Texas as in Austin, "down here we like both types of music, country AND western", Texas. So, all things considered, it is perhaps surprising to find Spoon have crafted an album that sounds so terribly, terribly British.
This, like previous releases, is a distinctly lo-fi post-punk offering. Elvis Costello (Daniels is an ardent admirer) appears the most dominant influence. His shadow is most evident on "Someone Something" and stand-out track "Jonathon Fisk". The latter crunches through vengeful memories of playground bullying, religion and right-wing politics with "atom bombs and blunt razors" thrown in for good measure. All the stuff of classic Costello.
There are shades of Tim Burgess falsetto on "Something To Look Forward To" and "Stay Don't Go". The Piano driven "The Way We Get By" is a touch sprightly Badly Drawn Boy and even Britt Daniels' vocal inflections seem affectedly British on opening track "Small Stakes".
"Stay Don't Go" features human beat box which, despite sounding vaguely Rolf Harris, reveals a desire to split from the classic rock mould. There is an air of tenderness and sincerity about the record, reflected in the sentiment "I will be there when you turn out the light" on "Paper Tiger". There's also sufficient angst in tracks such as "All The Pretty Girls Go To The City" to satisfy the indie audience's traditional demand for woe. A total reliance on fuzzed rhythm guitar is averted by recourse to keys and samplers. All of this marks a departure for Spoon and distinguishes this LP from the efforts of other US White Strokes indie rock outfits.
The mood of Kill The Moonlight is essentially laid back yet the pace is frenetic - twelve tracks in just thirty-four minutes. The loops and riffs are crude and chunky, as indeed they should be. Songs are constructed around a strong, coherent melodic core. The only real anti-climax is the fact that it is all over way too soon.
This band has suffered their fair share of bad luck in the past; they were dropped by their previous label after only four months for example, but with Kill The Moonlight, they have produced an album that really should bring them the success they deserve. Spoon might at times sound jolly British but they are frightfully good at it. Charmed I'm sure. --Daniel Pike
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Customer Reviews
My only serious complaint with this album would be the brevity of the songs - just as you're getting into some of them, they're over, and they tend to end quite abruptly. The cumulative effect of the tracks changing so rapidly is a bit like being beated around the head or pulled in opposite directions, and can get a bit grating. However, don't let that put you off one of the best albums 2002 had to offer.
'Small Stakes' builds around a jagged, jabbering guitat loop which threatens to rock out but never does. This unreleased tension is Spoon's secret weapon, which is why their taut, economical style can be initially underwhelming but somehow gets into your head. 'The Way We Get By' marries the irreverance of Iggy Pop with the stripped down blues-punk of The White Stripes on the album's best known song. Again it feels both raw and tightly arranged; nothing is wasted. 'Stay Don't Go' starts, surprisingly, with a human beatbox, and gradually adds component layers of guitar, piano and electronics. It sounds like they have disassembled a track and put it back together in a different, slightly abstract, but infinitely more funky way. Based around a Britt Daniels falsetto, it is both experimental and pop of the purest, most elemental kind. 'Paper Tiger' returns to this abstraction of texture and space with equal success, but with eerier undertones. One of the album's stand-out tracks, it owes as much to Brian Eno as it does to, say, Wire. It's final refrain of "I will be there with you when you turn out the light" is as unsettling as it might be construed as comforting.
Elsewhere, 'Don't Let it Get You Down' employs the very pleasing aural trick of having the music echo the vocal melody. It is a technique repeated in the bluesy, bawdy 'All The Pretty Girls Go To The City', in which Daniels' gritty drawl is mirrored in piano and rugged guitar licks. The locomotive 'Back To The Life', another album highlight, chugs like a freight train embellished with the bells and whistles of assorted studio trickery. Again, despite the deconstructed nature of the track, it is as lean and direct and memorable as The Beatles' best.
But for a couple of mediocre tracks ('Someone Something' is as forgettable as the title suggests) this is 85% of a classic album. Spoon have a habit (still in evidence in 2007) of making albums that grow on you - their modest initial impressions giving way to reveal music of great depth and permanence.
But make sure that both speakers are working otherwise you'll only here half the song!
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