Spiritualized Albums (7)
What The Critics Say
Who would have thought that Jason Pierce's Spiritualized would have had any life in them after the rather uninspiring Amazing Grace in 2003? In the intervening five years, Pierce nearly died from double pneumonia. Near death experiences by their very nature are life-changing events. The music on Songs in A&E were recorded in that aftermath, but most of the album was written two years before he got sick; with so much of it about near death and survival, it feels like life imitating art. From the first notes of "Sweet Talk," it's obvious that a very different Spiritualized is up and about; an acoustic guitar, a sparse drum kit, the voice quartet, a few horns, and a minimal bassline fuel it. Pierce sweetly croons to a loved one in waltz time; his words are simultaneously appeasing and accusatory. The gospel chorus isn't as overblown as it was on Amazing Grace or Let It Come Down. They are in a support role, offering Pierce's reedy voice a fullness and authority it wouldn't have otherwise. The arrangement is lilting but powerful. How strange, then, the sounds of a ventilator that usher in the next track "Death Take Your Fiddle": "I think I'll drink myself into a coma/And I'll take every way out I can find/But morphine, codeine, Whisky, they won't alter/The way I feel/Now death is not around..."Death take your fiddle"/And play a song for me." Minor-key acoustic guitar and ghostly bass frame Pierce singing a mutant folk-blues that evokes Gary Davis' "Death Don't Have No Mercy." The backing vocals float wordlessly like death angels, hovering around the vocalist and giving the tune an otherworldly quality. But this isn't a song about dying; it's a song about coming close and cheating it; it's eerie. The proof? The next two tracks: "I Gotta Fire," and "Soul on Fire." The former is a taut, "Gimme Shelter"-esque rocker, the latter, a lush, uptempo love song. "Sitting on Fire" is a beautifully orchestrated love song: it's an admission of weakness and codependency but celebrates both of them at the same time: "Baby, I'm sitting on fire/but the flames put a hole in my heart/when we're together we stand so tall/But a part of me falls to the floor/Sets me free /I do believe it'll burn up in me for the rest of my life." Strings, vibes, marimbas, and drums crash in to the center of the mix carrying the protagonist into oblivion. "Yeah, Yeah" is a scorching rocker that feels like the Bad Seeds meeting the old Spacemen 3. "You Lie You Cheat," crashes in Velvets style with acoustic guitar and screeching feedback. The chorus sings atop a flailing drum kit, distorted strings, and wailing electric guitar. The marimbas and strings that power "Baby, I'm Just a Fool," sweetly underscore a very dark pop song, complete with "da-do-da-do-dat det-det-do's". It descends into beautifully textured chaos led by a loopy violin solo over seven minutes. Songs in A&E is the most consistent recording Spiritualized has issued since 1997's Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space. It contains the best elements of the band's signature sound, and paradoxically hedonistic yet utterly spiritual lyric themes. That said, newly focused energy, willfully restrained arrangements, and taut compositions give the set a sheer emotional power that no Spiritualized recording has ever displayed before, making it, quite possibly, their finest outing yet. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
After the arduous process of making 2001's hyper-orchestrated Let It Come Down and hearing the fierce, back-to-basics rock of bands like the White Stripes and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Jason Pierce vowed that the next Spiritualized album would be a departure from the excesses of his previous efforts. In some aspects, Amazing Grace makes good on his word: right down to its cover art -- a photo of a naked arm, free of any ornament (or track marks) -- the album makes a show of its simplicity. The pair of rockers that begin Amazing Grace are just as driven as anything that has come out of the recent wave of garage rock revivalism, but save for some lo-fi affectations, could easily appear on any of Spiritualized's other albums. Indeed, lyrics like "This little life of mine/I'm gonna let it slide" and song titles like "She Kissed Me (It Felt Like a Hit)" are so quintessentially Spiritualized that they border on parody. The album's softer moments also have a slightly rehashed quality and are still fairly ornate. While "Hold On" and "Oh Baby" are more restrained than Pierce's Let It Come Down material, that just means that their excesses are less excessive -- there's only one orchestra and gospel choir per song. However, the processes that Pierce used to craft the album aren't as important as the fact that its songs aren't especially distinctive. Amazing Grace touches on all of Spiritualized's song archetypes: fiery rockers ("Never Going Back," "Cheapster"), gospel-tinged pleas for salvation ("Lord Let It Rain on Me"), ethereal laments ("Rated X"), and forays into jazz ("The Power and the Glory"), but, despite energetic performances and a relatively simple approach, very few of the songs connect. If anything, the stripped-down production magnifies the album's nondescript songwriting. The standout track is "The Ballad of Richie Lee," a bleakly beautiful song that truly does use the orchestra in a restrained and powerful way, making a logical progression from where Pierce's music has been to where it could be going. Amazing Grace is far from a bad album, but it's not an especially compelling one, either. The yin and yang of Spiritualized's symphonies and rock make for a sharp contrast in his work, but they can also settle into a rut, as is the case here. Die-hard Pierce fans may find a lot to like about Amazing Grace, but then again, they may find another spin of Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space more rewarding. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Jason Pierce has never shied away from changes in pursuit of his artistic goals. He traded Spacemen 3's white-hot intensity for the gentler ebb and flow of Spiritualized, and took things a step further by firing the rest of the band after their greatest success, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space. Let It Come Down is another step in Pierce's difficult, single-minded creative path. To craft the album's epic sound, Pierce sang the melodies into a Dictaphone, translated them to piano, and then transposed them into orchestral arrangements. This painstaking process results in an album that is equal parts intimate confessions and ambitious soundscapes, yet, despite the lineup changes and its lengthy inception, Let It Come Down doesn't sound radically different from Spiritualized's previous albums, proving for once and all that Pierce is Spiritualized and Spiritualized is Pierce. Instead, it feels like a natural progression from the densely orchestrated space rock of the first three Spiritualized albums, especially on the bleak, bluesy "Out of Sight" and the plaintive "Don't Just Do Something." Sweeping, stratospheric string and brass sections dominate the album, with over 100 musicians surrounding Pierce's frail, desolate vocals on some songs. Indeed, the lushness of the arrangements sometimes overpowers the album's relatively straightforward songwriting, particularly on tracks like "Anything More." While country and gospel influences bring the beautiful "Do It All Over Again" and "Won't Get to Heaven (The State I'm In)" back down to earth, Let It Come Down's elaborate sound doesn't always make its songs particularly accessible. When Pierce dares to keep things relatively simple, as on the insistent, yearning "I Didn't Mean to Hurt You" and the finale, "Lord Can You Hear Me," the emotional impact is stunning; the rockers "On Fire" and "The Twelve Steps" also cut the album's scope down to size in a direct, gripping way. Let It Come Down is another masterfully made Spiritualized album, but its very ambitions sometimes overwhelm it. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
'Royal Albert Hall October 10 1997'
Release Date 10/26/1998
Tracks 15
Label Dedicated
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Live albums, by and large, are a dime a dozen -- inconsequential souvenirs designed to placate fans awaiting new studio material, they rarely if ever shed new light on the artist in question; rarer still is their ability to approximate the energy and excitement of the concert setting itself. Spiritualized's transcendent Royal Albert Hall October 10 1997 is the proverbial exception that proves the rule, a revelatory two-disc collection which captures the group at the peak of their powers, somehow translating the hypnotic power and epic majesty of their live set onto vinyl. Rejecting the inane between-song stage patter common to most live performers, Jason Pierce instead weaves his music together into an unbroken tapestry of sound, casting a spell which ebbs and flows with narcotic beauty and intensity; even the most familiar selections (like "Shine a Light," "Take Your Time," and "Medication," all frequent inclusions on other Spiritualized live EPs and bootlegs) pulsate with new life, their melodies as likely to set off on a meditative drift as they are to erupt in blasts of white noise. Granted, Royal Albert Hall isn't a substitute for the experience of actually catching the group in the flesh -- what is? -- but like so few other concert LPs, it actually rises above its conceptual limitations, forever capturing a singular moment in time and space when Spiritualized was unquestionably the greatest rock & roll band in the world. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
'Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space'
Release Date 5/7/1997
Tracks 12
Label Dedicated
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Spiritualized's third collection of hypnotic headphone symphonies is their most brilliant and accessible to date. Largely forsaking the drones and minimalistic, repetitive riffs which have characterized his work since the halcyon days of Spacemen 3, Jason Pierce re-focuses here and spins off into myriad new directions; in a sense, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, with its majestic, Spector-like glow, is his classic rock album. "Come Together" and the blistering "Electricity" are his most edgy, straightforward rockers in eons, while the stunning "I Think I'm in Love" settles into a divided-psyche call-and-response R&B groove, and the closing "Cop Shoot Cop" (with guest Dr. John) locks into a voodoo blues trance. Lyrically, Pierce is at his most open and honest: The record is a heartfelt confessional of love and loss, with redemption found only in the form of drugs -- designed, no less, to look like a prescription pharmaceutical package, Ladies and Gentlemen is pointedly explicit in its description of drug use as a means of killing the pain on track after track. Conversely, never before have the literal implications of the name "Spiritualized" been explored in such earnest detail -- the London Community Gospel Choir appears prominently on a number of songs, while another bears the title "No God, Only Religion," pushing the music even further toward the kind of cosmic gospel transcendence it craves. A masterpiece. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Spiritualized's eagerly awaited second album continues the group's ethereal tradition, this time with a loopier, more symphonic sound. Many of the songs swell past the six-minute mark, ebbing and flowing majestically. "Medication," "Electric Phase," "Lay Back in the Sun," and "Spread Your Wings" typify the dreamy grandeur of most of the album. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Spiritualized's first official live release was this seven-song limited-edition package, originally available only via mail order. Taking its title from a line in the Spacemen 3 favorite "Walking with Jesus," Fucked Up Inside (like its successor, 1998's Royal Albert Hall set) somehow distills the full hypnotic brilliance of the group's remarkable live set onto record -- songs like "Take Good Care of It," "Shine a Light," and "Smiles" build and bloom with rare grandeur, crystallizing the epic sweep of Jason Pierce's sonic vision. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
