Electronically-adept but fond of pop hooks, unsentimental but never austere, Tarwater has always toyed with the mind-body problem. Here on their eighth full-length, the band's two principals?Ronald Lippok (ex of To Roccoco Rot) and Bernd Jestram-find a nearly perfect balance between digital cleanliness and human warmth. Slipping sensual beats under intellectually challenging abstractions, Spider Smile expands on the brainy pop forays of 2005's The Needle Was Travelling and takes them another step forward. - Pop Matters