CD Review

You don’t remember much about the day you were born, but as your parents will tell you, it was a messy affair. Blood, tears, umbilical cord, and placenta were everywhere around that cold hospital room. But as your parents held you crying uncontrollably, they knew you were something special. A person who would goes through trials that threatened you, but in the end would come out on top.

Merge’s re-release of their critical and indie darling Spoon’s hyped first full-length, 1996’s Telephono, and their improved follow-up EP, 1997’s Soft Effects EP, are the musical equivalent of that messy day in the hospital: loud, disorganized, and flaying its appendages in so many different directions that it’s hard to believe that they grew up to be such fine and upstanding children. Through the tributes to the Pixies’ and Sonic Youth, you can see a glimmer in the eyes of this uniquely packaged reissue of the band that Spoon becomes. There are bright spots throughout this double-CD release, and it's fun to see how the foundation for Kill the Moonlight and Gimme Fiction was laid, but the real delight will probably only come to die-hard fans and completists who are interested in hearing who Spoon was before they developed into who they are now.

For more info see: spoontheband.com