Listen to it before summer ends.

Guster’s Lost and Gone Forever and Keep It Together are two of my favorite albums, so I had high hopes for Ganging Up on the Sun. Unfortunately, very few of the songs play to Guster’s strengths; their delicious vocal harmonies, clever lyrics, and killer pop hooks are in short supply. The music sounds almost anonymous – many of the songs could be by any competent indie pop band.

But it’s still “Worth listening!” because “Manifest Destiny” is very good; “C’mon” is good but a little desperate, and there are a couple more true-to-form Guster tracks on there.

I don’t want to sound like I oppose the evolution of this band. Lost and Gone Forever and Keep It Together are very different-sounding albums, but they both let Guster show what really makes them special. This one, not so much.

I think Spoon is incapable of making bad music, and every album they make gets better and better. Gimme Fiction flirts more with prog-rock than their other releases, which isn’t to my taste, but it’s still a spectacular album. If you don’t love “The Beast and Dragon, Adored,” you have no soul.

A terrific portrayal of the patriarch, matriarch, and 3 grown children of an upwardly-mobile Midwestern family. I’ve never seen an author express so much contempt and yet so much tenderness for his characters – just as the characters have such contempt and tenderness for each other. Ridiculously perceptive.

Such a tremendous album. The show-tune-ish title track is revelatory and worth the price of the album by itself. I’ve listened to it over and over and over and have only 2 criticisms: that a few of the songs (“Window,” “Get Him Back,” “Please Please Please”) feel a little too familiar and auto-pilot; and also that some of the extended metaphors/analogies/conceits can wear out their welcome over the course of a song. But I’m only taking the time to quibble because the album is breathtaking, and otherwise perfect.