Album Review: Spoon - Transference

You wander down the beaten concrete path of a dimly lit, brick-lined alley; intently following the vibrations of a fuzzy bass that is barely audible, but which still manages to roll around heavily in your chest cavity.

Drops of dirty rainwater slip off of the side of a sheet-metal roof onto your head as you reach a corroding dumpster with a small window hovering above. The music is louder: muffled, raspy vocals can be distinctly heard between the sounds of the cars passing by the entrance to the alley.

You hoist yourself up onto the dumpster, staining your palms orange with damp rust. Steadying yourself against the brick wall, you come up to your full height and gaze through the window into the poorly lit room below. Several lamps giving off slightly different shades of cream silhouette the steel columns holding up the empty warehouse and cast harsh shadows on the faces of the band who are gathered in the middle of the room.

You push the window open and the sound rushes out; it’s still not quite clear thanks to the lack of a proper PA or sound system, but it has such immediacy that you don’t even seem to notice. Despite the precarious foundation upon which you are currently standing, you begin to move your body with the beat and smack your hand against the side of your thigh in rhythm.

The music feels like something you’ve heard before, which helps you to forget about the occasional gusts of wind that prick up the hairs on your arms. The consistency with which the band propels itself forward is slowed only by the occasional break between songs; time filled with the lighting of cigarettes and deep swallows of brown-bottled beer.

Before you know it, the band stops playing for good and the lights go down to black. You jump down onto the buckling pavement and walk home. You have a hard time picking out one track from another as the music plays over in your mind, but despite this, you can’t help but feel that you’ve heard something special.

You only wish you could hear it again.

****************************************

Turn the record back over to side one, start the turntable, and put the needle on the soon to be well worn grooves.

Buy the album at itunes here:

|