Spoon

From choppy piano ditties to porch-stompers to space transmissions, Spoon's LP Kill the Moonlight dips into more musical hues than 2001's Girls Tell All, but lyrically focuses on slouching suburbia, love crashed out on the floor, and villains who defeat us before we make it to the phone booth to change. With the Krishna carnival of "Small Stakes," its spacious vocals and keyboards strikingly similar to labelmate Imperial Teen, Britt Daniel's first couplet defines the vibe: "Small stakes ensure you the minimum blues/You don't feel taken and you don't feel used." "The Way We Get By" sways to a mix of the Beatles' White Albumand Pavement: "We get high in back seats of cars/We break into mobile homes..../That's the way we get by." A Michael Hutchence-esque sexhale provides the backbeat for "Stay Don't Go," which reminds the overachievers to "keep believing the things you tell yourself." "Jonathon Fisk" and "Someone Something" are Kill the Moonlight's standout tracks, a fists-up guitar chugger and saloon sing-along respectively. With slacker graffiti painted all over the chords, Spoon gives hope as the LP closes: "It goes on/Ohh it goes on."