There was a point a few years ago when I was pretty well convinced that the only American ‘rock’ band left that really mattered was Spoon. Starting with 2001’s Girls Can Tell, Spoon put together a string of four back to back records on Merge, with each new brilliant album being slightly better than the last. Their sound wasn’t based on 60’s surf, 70’s classic, 80’s synth, or 90’s alt-rock… it was, just a groove that made your head nod and forced you to pay attention. You see, Britt Daniel and Co. are more subtle than to give you an obvious influence and instead channel elements of opposing song writing giants to play off of. You get a bit of Costello, a smidgen of the Clash, a hint of the “wall of sound” with a touch of Bowie and then mix in a heaping of original creepy grooves and the…