UK outfit the Duke Spirit, who washed up on these shores to some fanfare back in ’06 with Cuts Across The Land, check in with a track from their follow up Neptune out this April. The record’s “about the ocean, recorded in the desert” (as in Joshua Tree, CA), and as “My Sunken Treasure”‘s title tips off, there’s lots of watery metaphors at work. Their last sounds were garagey, noisey, grungy — here comes a shift, though, to the sort of shuffling, glockenspiel-tinkled Motown soul Spoon’s been working ala “You Got Yr Cherry Bomb.” Not the most original sound in a post GaGa world, but it’s a sweet tune, done well. Expect rom-com soundtrack placement.
Neptune is out 4/8 on Shangri-La Music. Here’s the album’s first clip, and old-school-film vid for Jefferson Airplane-y “The Step And The Walk”:
 |
 |
I’m somewhat surprised by how much I like Neptune. It’s a really strong album start-to-finish.
I think the album is on iTunes already but not sure.
I really loved Cuts Across the Land but Neptune just doesn’t do it for me as much. It has much less of an edge and is kind of underwhelming. Def a solid album start-to-finish as Bill P said, hopefully it’ll grow on me.
So any new song that recalls Motown is now indebted to Spoon? “Sunken Treasure” is the most poppy song on Neptune. I think the album actually rocks harder than Cuts Across the Land.