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Spoon's most mature, accomplished work to date and a fine balance of fire and polish.
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Spoon's 1998 album, A Series of Sneaks, was a near-perfect blend of elementary rock, sharp lyrics, and hooky melodies. On the band's just-released follow-up album, Girls Can Tell, the group manages to build upon the greatness of its previous effort.
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At 36 minutes, Girls Can Tell packs more hooks than most bands fit into their entire discography... This is truly one of the most intense pop records since This Year's Model.
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Austin's favorite trio dishes out eleven helpings of diverse alt-pop on what may wind up being the finest record of its ilk all year. Charged by song sculptor/frontman Britt Daniel, this start-to-finish triumph never underachieves even if it has an effortless aura at times.
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UncutA near-masterpiece.... It's hip and urgent, formal and exhilarated, everything guitar pop aspires to today. [Dec 2001, p.118]
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Alternative PressSpoon deliver everything with a calm, classy Motown-pop feel, but the disc still crackles with punk intensity... [#154, p.97]
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MagnetContinues to mine the same sparkling vein of crushed-velvet pop/punk Spoon has perfected as its stock in trade. [#49, p.91]
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Their music is as strong as ever and they certainly deserve your attention.
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Girls Can Tell abandons some of the more familiar modern-rock tendencies of Spoon's previous albums, favoring the ambitious structures of art-rock and offering an impressive meeting place between traditional new wave and the abrasive, angular qualities of Wire and Magazine.
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Girls Can Tell is more mature and accomplished, but at the expense of the spark of spontaneity.
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Spoon's most ambitious album is also their best.
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A collection of near perfect (and brief, yes!) lo-fi pop tracks that openly mine the sonic groundwork laid by The Cars, Squeeze and even Led Zeppelin.
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Spoon is the best British band to come out of Austin, Texas.
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Entertainment WeeklyGirls' melding of new wave and indie pop literally sounds timeless... [3/9/2001, p.82]
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Perverse as it may seem, this album is more tightly arranged and crisply recorded than anything the group managed on a major label; in fact, it’s a small masterpiece of home production, with Eno’s economical drumming framing stabs of rhythm guitar and precisely placed daubs of vibes and viola.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 52 out of 61
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Mixed: 2 out of 61
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Negative: 7 out of 61
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DrewCJul 20, 2007
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BobRJul 7, 2007o_o;; a strokes comparison... how odd. Anyway, this album is full of surprises.
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Aug 16, 2015