With the release of Spoon Benders sophomore album How Things Repeat, the band announced they would be leaving the comfort of the Portland music scene to move to LA. If you stay in one place for too long, you become part of the drywall says lead singer Katy Black, emphasizing the importance of being a little uncomfortable in order to create art. This idea is at the heart of How Things Repeat. While listeners can reach their own conclusions about meanings of individual songs, the overall theme of the album is cohesive- How Things Repeat is about getting stuck in hamster wheels of boredom and repetition- then filling the remaining void with empty pleasures, rather than fulfillment. In order to evade such hamster wheels, Spoon Benders applied a new approach to their writing process, which was much more collaborative for How Things Repeat. They experimented with extended jam sessions in their practice space, letting songs unfold and take their own shape. Genre-blending is kind of the main thing that we naturally do in order to not get bored of ourselves, and challenge ourselves, says Black. You can hear this in Spoon Benders' particular melange of garage psych; shifting seamlessly from glittering atmospheric rock to doom-groove metal, or galloping punk; with haunting and even disorienting moments thrown in for good measure. After the release of How Things Repeat, Spoon Benders embarked on a monthlong US/ Canadian tour, playing many sweaty, sold out shows to satisfied slam-dancing headbangers. They plan to keep touring extensively, hitting festivals such as Flipside, Levitation, Treefort, Endless and Mosswood Meltdown.
