Calgary Herald Review October 2008

Dark and Superior
Emotionally dark disc not light on sound
Heath McCoyPublished: Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Rae Spoon

Superior You Are Inferior

Rating 5 out of five

One can make out shades of Sinead O’Connor in Rae Spoon’s powerful, emotive vocals. Or, perhaps he’s closer to Neko Case when his tone turns ghostly, like a haunting country siren.

There’s a touch of k.d. lang, too, in Spoon’s Alberta roots, complete with a deep connection to his prairie upbringing (and simultaneous alienation from it).

As for the former Calgarian’s considerable talent for poetic verse, affinity to the Canadian landscape and all, it certainly recalls Joni Mitchell.

Rather striking credentials, aren’t they?

These are chief among the ingredients that make Spoon’s latest disc Superior You Are Inferior a true thing of beauty.

Make no mistake, it’s a dark, depressing record — maybe at times a touch heavy-handed in its utter bleakness — and that could scare some folks away. Don’t let that be you, though, because ultimately Spoon’s songwriting is evocative and moving, with his aching, heartfelt tales of alienation and longing, pain and persecution.

As for the “he” references to a singer who so exudes feminine artistry? Well, Spoon is a transgendered individual who identifies himself as a male.

Now you can understand the alienation he’s felt, which comes into play all over Superior, most powerfully in Off The Grid, Underground, a harsh tale of “queers” forced to hide in an intolerant country town. The tune ends on a menacing note with the mean refrain: “Run, run, run, across the land/ This town will chase you with a gun in its hand.”

Meanwhile, Spoon seems both frightened and critical of his home province on the dark folk number My Heart Is A Piece of Garbage. Fight Seagull! Fight!, with its image of the Calgary Tower standing high, “like a giant fist that sticks up with all its might.”

The album is nearly as rich sonically as it is lyrically. Co-produced by Calgary’s Lorrie Matheson, whose magic touch in the studio becomes more apparent all the time, Superior offers a dark blend of earthy roots music and electronic sounds that’s both tasteful and compelling. This makes for an incredibly catchy bit of roots pop on Come On Forest Fire Burn The Disco Down, which deserves to be a hit.

For its stark honesty, vulnerability and its dark wellspring of emotion Superior You Are Inferior really is a stunning disc and it establishes Rae Spoon as one of the finest talents on the Canadian indie scene.