For those who may have missed it, Spoon delivered their latest album on Tuesday. As I posted a month ago, you can listen to it in its entirety online here. This Austin, Texas band is nothing short of incredible. The seemingly sparse rock songs on first listen in reality have very complicated, intertwined instrumentation. The lyrics are catchy and melodies are memorable. Overall, this harkens back to Squeeze, Elvis Costello or XTC, for those 80s fans, with occasional 70s Stones-like blues-y rockers. I still think the previous album (Gimme Fiction) is their best to date…but we’re talking a matter of degrees. Singer, guitarist, songwriter Britt Daniel is possibly the best alt-rocker on the scene right now (no offense to Jeff Tweedy or Beck) and has continually built from Spoon’s debut masterpiece (and I never use that word lightly), Girls Can Tell.

They only have four albums, and I suggest you own them all. (At least check out the iTunes Essential Spoon compilation for a taste from all their recordings.)