Album: Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (Anti-)

One of the biggest underground bands in America, Spoon, mystifyingly, have yet to make much of an impression over here. Mystifying because Spoon are one of the more Anglophilic American bands of recent times and they're also pretty great.

Spoon's sixth album follows the critically-acclaimed, yet fan-dividing Gimme Fiction, their most distinctly hi-fi release to date. Although that album had its share of highlights, it also had some sag, so it's heartening that they've returned to the fat-free feel of Girls Can Tell and Kill The Moonlight. Always a production nut's wet dream, Spoon up the ante here with some seriously intricate arrangements that make Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga one of the most rewarding listens of 2007 thus far, despite its 36 minute running time.

The paranoid strut of 'Don't Make Me A Target' is a classic Spoon opener, both instantly fortifying and sonically arresting. As always, it makes great use of space and depth to create an edifying surround-sound effect. Elsewhere, 'The Ghost Of You Lingers' is propelled by a Phillip Glass-like piano line that acts as melody and rhythm while Britt Daniel's voice floats spectrally above and 'My Little Japanese Cigarette Case' is all Pixies menace and malevolence, only less unhinged, more gentrified and more disturbing.

'You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb' and 'Finer Feelings' are two of the best songs that Spoon have ever recorded. The former a brassy, Brill Building stomp with added weirdness, while the latter, with its circular melody and pleasingly ill-fitting Mikey Dread sample, manages to be both supremely catchy and maddeningly slippery. In the end, it's difficult to pick highlights from an album this strong. For once, the Americans are way ahead of the curve and it's us that have some catching up to do.

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