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Spoon is a good band. I wish this review could just be the sentence “Spoon is a good band,” one thousand times but it can’t because I’m a music review artist and this is art you’re reading. Also, I couldn’t do that because I’m not sure if it’s proper to say “Spoon is a good band” or “Spoon are a good band.” But that’s beside the point. Let me ask you this: is there a bad Spoon album? (I’d accept the answer Telephono, their first record, but in their defense, how good was your first album? Mine was pretty bad.)

A record is only as good as its songs, and boy, did Spoon deliever some bangerz (as Miley Cyrus would say) this time around. There’s the opener “Rent I Pay,” which is basically Spoon-by-numbers but not in a bad way. In fact, one of the many wonderful things about this band is how fresh they sound while still completely sounding like Spoon. “Inside Out,” the one with the crazy hip hop beat, is straight up fantastic. They did a stripped down version of that song on The Tonight Show and it’s absolutely beautiful. Don’t even get me started on “Do You,” which is the Goddamn Summer Jam of 2014, because I’m the King of Summer and I can make executive decisions like that.

There’s one song on here that doesn’t totally fit: “I Just Don’t Understand.” It’s an old song made famous in the Sixties by Ann-Margaret. It’s not bad per say; rather, it just stands out to me as beaming in from a different album than the other songs.

“New York Kiss” is also a really excellent song. It’s probably going to be playing in my head the next time I get a kiss in New York; it’ll also be playing in every movie that comes out in the next year where someone gets a kiss in New York.

There’s a new guy in the band, Alex Fischel, who was in Divine Fits with Spoon frontman Britt Daniel. He seems like a pretty cool dude, he’s got really good hair.

Spoon is a good band. Spoon are a good band.

– Layne Montgomery