Gimme Fiction (Merge)

Spoon has been active for just over a decade and has been making records for almost as long, but the Austin, Texas-based band once seemed destined to languish in unjustified obscurity. Releases on Matador and even a brief tenure on a major label (EMI put out 1998's A Series of Sneaks) didn't help much. Conversely, Spoon's time on Merge Records-starting with 2000's Love Ways EP and continuing with the stellar full-length discs Girls Can Tell (2001) and Kill the Moonlight (2002)-has seen the group rise from a neglected nonentity to a critical darling and a favourite of discerning indie snobs everywhere.

Gimme Fiction should win Spoon a few more followers. The disc's 11 tracks find the band, which is centred around singer and multi-instrumentalist Britt Daniel and drummer Jim Eno, stretching out and embellishing its usually stripped-down sound with a few welcome flourishes. From the string-gilded pop of "Two Sides/Monsieur Valentine" through the bass-heavy falsetto funk of "I Turn My Camera On" (which features Crooked Fingers' Eric Bachmann on backing vocals) and the anthemic guitar rock of "Sister Jack", Daniel, Eno, and their collaborators manage to avoid anything resembling a formulaic approach to the material. What holds everything together is Daniel's voice, which somehow sounds snotty and offhanded yet rife with conviction, even when it's tossing off couplets such as "Every morning I pull on them pants/Mmm but I don't get out so much since I acquired St. Vitus dance".

This is finely crafted stuff, and if Spoon can keep churning out albums this great, a return to obscurity seems unlikely.