Album Review: Spoon — “Got Nuffin” EP

Spoon is officially a “comfort food” band. Whether you spin early effort A Series of Sneaks or commercial breakthrough Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, you pretty much know what you’re going to get: Singer Britt Daniel’s raspy, lovelorn musings, Jim Eno’s methodical, musical drumming, and whoever’s playing bass at the time staying out of the way. Sure, there have been small variations in the ingredients, but why screw with a winning recipe?

It’s been two years since Ga⁵ pushed Spoon into the mainstream, so it’s no surprise that raving Spoon-atics (myself included) salivated Pavlovian-style over news of the surprise EP, Got Nuffin. While calling the four tracks an EP is stretching it (“Tweakers” and its remix are essentially unfinished, fuzzed-out drum loops), the title track is an instant classic, a stripped-down minor-key stomper that’s surprisingly life-affirming (“I’ve got nothin’ to lose but darkness and shadows,” Daniel croaks). Meanwhile, “Stroke Their Brains” is a bouncy, reverb-crazy mad-science experiment, with Daniel as the creature on the operating table. Consider our brains stroked, and our appetites whetted for the next satisfying entrée.