Do no wrong

“I’m writing this to you in reverse,” Spoon’s Britt Daniel rasps on “Written in Reverse,” one of 11 new songs from the band’s self-produced seventh studio album, Transference. “Someone better call a hearse”; someone get this man a throat lozenge while you’re at it. Following the success of 2007’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, these Portland-by-way-of-Austin indie-rock elder statesmen return with another batch of excellent, self-contained sonic dynamos. Unlike Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, however, Transference has rougher, less-polished edges to it, and the results are slightly more rewarding. “Trouble Comes Running,” one of the best tracks here, opens with murky acoustic guitar strumming that’s sucker-punched awake with a salvo of brute power pop that thankfully doesn’t let up. “Who Makes Your Money” employs phantom sonar pings over haunting layered vocals, while “The Mystery Zone” zigzags across state lines Neko Case’s tornado neglected to devastate. “Got Nuffin,” from the 2009 appetizer EP of the same name, is a tight, kinetic ditty with punchy piano lines and clanging guitar. “Goodnight Laura,” a simple piano and vocal lullaby, finds Spoon’s studio tinkering ever so subtly floating underneath. Transference makes the case: Once again, Spoon can do no wrong.