Spoon returns with another succinct set of eclectic, terse tunes. The minute the whole thing kicks off, it all comes flooding back: You're serenaded with that oh-so-friendly jittery piano, cha-cha beats, guitar as thick as Guinness, and Britt Daniel's bad-older-brother mannerisms kicking into high gear. Spoon is still a band that its fans can reliably call home while welcoming the surprises of a renovation here and there.

If this review were as taut as Spoon's 10-song, 36-minute sixth full-length, it'd say something like "Without Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga in your collection, your year will suck worse than a How I Met Your Mother marathon." The minute the whole thing kicks off, it all comes flooding back: You're serenaded with that oh-so-friendly jittery piano, cha-cha beats, guitar as thick as Guinness, and Britt Daniel's bad-older-brother mannerisms kicking into high gear. If you want to really accomplish something meaningful this summer, you could either shell out for a hybrid car, or else you could buy Spoon's damn record. The first four songs are heart-attack specials: rich, shocking, greasy with intent. "The Ghost of You Lingers" pulls some seriously freaky s**t, with disaffected melodies, faraway muttering, sputtering, and crooning (at one point, it feels like you're trapped in one of those old Star Treks where they walk through another dimension and the sound f/x goes something like: "DDRRRBBLLLTTT"). Meanwhile, "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" is as good as anything the band has ever done, and you shouldn't feel ashamed playing it a half-dozen times back-to-back. The unexpected Tommy Jamesian delays and soulfully coy vignettes here could have easily been a highlight for the Stranger Than Fiction soundtrack (which Daniel helped score last year).

As it progresses, things on Ga continue keep you a little off your Spoon game. The Jon Brion-produced "The Underdog" sounds just that: can't-miss Brion leveraging of drilling horns; archly strummed bursts of guitar; Daniels' barbed-wire vox multi-tracked and implanted with a healthy stash of trademark soulful "oohs"; handclaps; plus a little glittering mariachi note to push it through the fade. Two homages to music-biz friends succeed as well, including "Eddie's Ragga," a Clash-y dance through broken glass, and "Don't You Evah," a snarky, locked-on cover of ("Record that s**t!" is the first sample you hear) an as-yet-unreleased groove by NYC's The Natural History -- though surely after this, it will be. It could be 1997 or 2007, but Spoon is still a band that its fans can reliably call home while welcoming the surprises of a renovation here and there. And thank god you saved all that money on the Prius. [KO] (July 10, 2007)