Right before They Want My Soul came out, I wasn’t really sure what to expect out of a new Spoon album in 2014. In the four years since 2010’s Transference, Spoon weren’t really a band I returned to, like at all. I’m not sure if this is because they seemed like such an inseparable part of the ’00s for indie-leaning music fans, and in turn felt like a band that might have little reason to exist outside of that decade. Also, this felt especially true when considering that Transference was such an annoyed shrug of an album, and thus made it feel like the golden era of Spoon had perhaps run its course. But as I spent a lot of the early Summer listening back to all those old Spoon albums, it became quite apparent that Spoon was (and is) a band that stands outside of any passing trends and thus have a tendency to sound pretty timeless. Which makes it a bit easier to accept that They Want My Soul has already earned a place among my favorite Spoon albums if not my favorite at this point. And I’m sure you could construct some sort of bullshit “return to form” narrative around this album, but I think Spoon defy this kind of nonsense because there’s no narrative necessary to explain Spoon’s greatness. They’re just a very consistent band who’s very good at what they do, and They Want My Soul proves that they’ve still got room to get even better at it.