Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga LP

With a history of stellar records, Spoon topped themselves with Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, a thrilling album recorded throughout 2006 in Austin by the band and Mike McCarthy (except “The Underdog,” recored in Los Angeles with Jon Brion.) Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga starts with “Don’t Make Me a Target” a song that builds on Spoon’s familiar minimal rhythmic piano/guitar vamp popularized on earlier hits like “Small Stakes” or “The Way We Get By.” The album quickly moves into uncharted territory with the atmospheric “The Ghost of You Lingers” and through several different stylistic changes, from the explosive (no pun intended) “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb” to the wall-of-sound horns of the radio single “The Underdog.” The Britt Daniel originals on Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga comprise his most heartfelt batch of songs since 2001’s Girls Can Tell. Modern rock at its best.