Over the weekend, I picked up Venus Hum‘s new EP, Songs For Superheroes, and Spoon‘s Gimme Fiction. The former because I’ve got a piece in the Rage next week previewing their next Nashville show and the latter because Spoon are fantastic.

I really like the Venus Hum EP. It’s a collection of songs they wrote for different reasons and just collected for an EP. So it has a very b-sides feel to it. A couple of the tracks have bigger beats and noisier noises than I’ve heard them do previously and I like that a lot. I think they’re the happiest futuristic band ever.

The Spoon record hasn’t grown on me yet, but I like what I’ve heard. Their records always take a while to sink in with me. Eventually, I’ll remember every note.

I also reviewed Paramore, a young Franklin, TN band, for next week’s Rage. They’re very good, but very emo. I just don’t understand the emo. Mostly, I don’t understand how it’s become a genre so far from what the term used to denote. Remember when Fugazi was an emo reference?