’Hot Thoughts’’ is the bravest, most sonically inventive work of Spoon’s career. With all due respect to earlier efforts that have made the quintet both critically acclaimed and a commercial contender, preconceptions about this band are about to be obliterated. That’s not to say ‘Hot Thoughts’  doesn’t have a requisite supply of infectious earworms but there’s a lyrical bent that’s as carnal as it’s crafty, and a newfound sense of sonic exploration that results in the genresmasher Spoon have flirted with in the past but not fully consummated.

Co-produced by Spoon and Dave Fridmann and reunited with Matador (third time’s the charm), let's acknowledge that Britt Daniel’s spot in the pantheon of rock’s genius songwriters was well established a ways back, but with the crackling, incandescent, multi-dimensional backdrop conjured on ‘Hot Thoughts’, the lines between accessible and experimental become non-factors for once and all. It’s pop as high art, delivered with total confidence and focus.