Chart-topping indie rock band Spoon performs at Sherman Theater in Stroudsburg on Dec. 3
From a press release:
Following the release of their acclaimed ninth album and fourth in a row to crack the U.S. Top 10, Texas indie rockers Spoon will perform at the Sherman Theater in Stroudsburg on Sunday, Dec. 3 at 8 p.m. with White Reaper.
Tickets, which are $27.50 in advance or $30 the day of the show, are on sale now and available through the Sherman Theater box office (524 Main St., Stroudsburg), online at shermantheater.com and ticketfly.com, and all Ticketmaster outlets. VIP boxes and sky boxes are available for this show and include eight tickets (VIP box) or 12 tickets (sky box), a fruit and cheese platter, and waitstaff. To purchase box seats, call the theater at 570-420-2808.
“Hot Thoughts,” Spoon’s latest studio album, is the bravest, most sonically inventive work of their career, though keep in mind, lead singer and guitarist Britt Daniel has already overseen a number of other reincarnations. With all due respect to earlier efforts that have made the band both critically acclaimed and a commercial contender, preconceptions about Spoon are about to be obliterated.
That’s not to say “Hot Thoughts” doesn’t have a requisite supply of infectious earworms – this isn’t a different band (though this is the first Spoon album with no acoustic guitar) – but there’s a lyrical bent that’s as carnal as it’s crafty, and a newfound sense of sonic exploration that results in the genre-smasher Spoon have flirted with in the past but not fully consummated.
The 10 songs on “Hot Thoughts” run the gamut, from the kaleidoscopic opening title track (as tone-setting as, say, “Dirty Mind” for the album it commences) through the gargantuan stomp of “Do I Have to Talk You Into It” and the ubiquitous wiry hooks of “Can I Sit Next to You” to the bittersweetness of “I Ain’t the One” and the deadpan swing of “Tear It Down” – less the telling of an apocalyptic vision and more what Daniel describes as a song about “empathy for strangers.”
Ample recognition should be tossed in the direction of Dave Fridmann, whose wizard-level ingenuity has brought a diabolical sheen to the band’s swagger. There may be many great ways to occupy one’s time in Cassadaga, New York, but holing up at Fridmann’s studio to make a masterpiece is definitely one of them.
Without question, the prior works of Daniel, drummer Jim Eno, bassist Rob Pope, and no-longer-a-secret weapon Alex Fischel have scaled some lofty heights, from 1996 debut LP “Telephono,” 1998’s “A Series of Sneaks,” 2001’s “Girls Can Tell,” 2002’s “Kill the Moonlight,” and 2005’s recently reissued in deluxe 10th anniversary grandeur “Gimme Fiction” through the trifecta of U.S. Top 10 albums that was “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga” (2007), “Transference” (2010), and “They Want My Soul” (2014). You’re talking about a winning streak that’s nothing short of Mayweather-esque, but “Hot Thoughts” is a daring, futuristic chapter in the Spoon story.
Daniel’s spot in the pantheon of rock’s genius songwriters was established long ago, but with the crackling, incandescent, multi-dimensional backdrop conjured on “Hot Thoughts,” the lines between accessible and experimental become non-factors for once and all. It’s pop as high art, delivered with total confidence and focus.
