Tracks

“Got Nuffin’”
Spoon

Over the decade, Spoon has boiled down its new-wave pop-rock on increasingly minimal releases (most of which start with the letter g, oddly). At this point, the four ingredients—bass, beat, guitar, Britt Daniel—have congealed into something more thick, sticky and pungent. (Perhaps that cooking-utensil moniker isn’t so random.)

This one-off teaser from an EP of the same name, a holdover between albums, is as cool and dry as Joey Ramone mixing a martini with a drop of vermouth. The Texas foursome makes rock & roll sound so easy, building a single from practically nuffin’—crackling guitar scribbles and Daniel’s Lennon-with-a-sinus-infection affectation over a kick-drum thwap in 4/4 time, locked to 16th-note bass plucks. The band plays taut and tense like men uncomfortably stuffed in skinny jeans and turtlenecks fresh out of the dryer, building suspense to a never-arriving climax. It’s a neat trick, but after four albums’ worth of it, Spoon needs to scratch that itch and explode.

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