Spoon

Five years later, Spoon's 2002 release, Kill the Moonlight, still feels new. In fact, it still has the acute ability to make listeners pace from room to room, clapping their hands, attempting bad imitations of Britt Daniel's raspy croon, wishing there was a sweet party about to happen. It's almost as if the album was recorded in a vacuum, out of time and place. The opening song on Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, the act's sixth record, crowns with some off-putting digital distortion that lets you know exactly when and where it's coming from. It's no big deal, really, as the album is littered with great songs that connect on a totally gut level, but it lacks the head-to-tail gusto that made Moonlight truly epic. Back-to-back tracks "The Ghost of You Lingers" and "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" are especially fetching reminders of the former's high points, but there are plenty of other moments in which, well, if the remote is handy...