Spiritualized Album: “Let It Come Down”

This being the first and only Spiritualized CD I own, I can't compare it with LAGWAFIS etc....all I know is after I listed to this album once, the reaction was 'wow'. To get a quick taste, check out 'Don't Just Do Something', 'Straight and the Narrow' or the single 'Stop Your Crying'...in my opinion, the best songs on the album. Here it is song by song....

On Fire - A nice little start to the album. Upbeat, but a little simple. The very first line alludes to Spaceman's previous and/or ongoing drug/alcohol addiction ('Lets see how high we can fly/before the sun melts the wax in our wings')...a theme throughout the album

Do It All Over Again - Again, upbeat and catchy, simple and fun

Don't Just Do Something - I love this song. Perhaps the best on the album. Combines serious and hilarious lyrics, ie. 'I could lay in bed/like my mama said/"don't just do something,sit around instead"'. Nice, rambling verses, and a complete change in the middle. The kind of song you stop what you're doing to listen to

Out of Sight - Pretty song, nice rhymes, definitely worth checking out

Twelve Steps - A lot of people hate this song, and i'm not one of them. Certainly not the best on the album, but a nice, grungy change in a generally soft album. The only 'rockin' song on the album, and a pretty good effort

Straight and the Narrow - Aaah, another beautiful song. Great lyric for the chorus: 'the trouble with the straight and the narrow/is its so thin i keep sliding off to the side/and the devil makes good use for these hands of mine'. Definitely puts the 'spiritual' in Spiritualized, but in a way pretty much anyone can relate to.

I Didn't Mean To Hurt You - Great first verse...unfortunately its basically repeated throughout the whole song. Had potential, but its too repetitive

Stop Your Crying - The first single released, and a pretty darn good song. Nothing to get too excited about, but its nice and simple, and touching...'nothing hurts you like the pain of someone you love/there ain't nothing you can gain that prepares you enough'

Anything More - Really like this song. Kind of sleepy and relaxing

Won't Get To Heaven (The State I'm In) - Heavy religious theme (obviously), but in a nice way. The thing about spiritualized is that though many of their songs seem to have a Christian theme, its not a shove-it-down-your-throat kinda thing....Spaceman uses the themes in a way most can relate too, and it doesn't feel preachy at all. A beautiful song.

Lord Can You Hear Me - Absolutely beautiful. The perfect song to fall asleep to. Plaintive and affecting

"Let's see how high we can fly,

before the sun melts the wax in our wings /

Let's see how fast we can go /

before our eyes can't follow the road"

It's been said (by me, anyway), that Spiritualized remains one of the safest ways to experiment with heroin (right behind Portishead's "Glory Box" and similar deep-fried samples of genius), and while a sometimes surprising departure from what may have been the expected trajectory in the wake of Ladies and gentlemen, it fulfills the expectation of dose/peak/slump/glide we've seen in Jason's earlier works, all the way back to early Spacemen 3 days. In fact, Let it come down is, in some respects, a virtual retrospective on highlights of his stylings throughout his entire career.

Again calling himself 'Jay Spaceman', as he did in Spacemen 3 days (perhaps finally starting to get past those scars?--he once said he'd never play any Spacemen 3 songs ever again), he has followed his nearly singleminded pursuit of a pure, direct, organic--truly spiritual--sound, for better or for worse, gradually shedding extraneous baggage along the way, including former girlfriend (and original bandmate) Kate Radley, and nearly everyone else willing to take that ride with him.

He now teams up with Kate's replacement, the brilliant Welsh synthesist Thighpaulsandra (once-and-future collaborator with such greats as Julian Cope and Coil, as well as a duly accomplished name in his own right), a handful of people who must have enormous endurance and patience, as well as a massive layout of more formal backing muscle, including a gospel chorus, a skullshaking horn section, and a warp-powered string section. Little Jay himself picks up ten different instruments, six of which are guitars, including his oldest and best friend, his Fender Jaguar--the piece that provided the anguished howl on so much of Spacemen 3's early repertoir.

The predominant sound is everything he's done already, plus some more, and more professionally engineered. There are the favoured 3/4 and 6/8 forms, though you'd never call it waltz, together with rolling swells of richly blended classic rock-n-roll hardware: Fenders and Gibsons, Hammonds and farfisas, and even a wonderful Gretsch drumkit that would be at home on any Beach Boys album, all blown through the requisite overheated tube amps.

Even so, the structure is much more broken up than on the unending spiral dream of Pure Phase or the symphonic epic of Ladies and Gentlemen. If this can be placed close to any earlier work, it would fit most comfortably next to Lazer Guided Melodies. The pieces are individual, and fully realised, sparing no room for the flat-out jams and noisy improvisations of Pure Phase and Ladies and Gentlemen.

Several of the tracks, especially in the middle, are drippy, incidental ballads that could be right off of Lazer Guided Melodies, and for that unfortunately largely constitute filler. And "Do it all over again" sounds like a Jason cover of a Jesus and Mary Chain song, no matter how many times I hear it.

By far the most outstanding track is the sledgehammer "Out of sight"--an intense, cellular piece that almost makes you able to say "power ballad" (without immediately thinking "mullet"), but to me also suggests the term "smack-dirge". Towering horns against a sprawling tapestry of strings and Hammond, along with the pounding Gretsch, provide the sensation of being in the proverbial handbasket, and for this number Jason drags out the heavy meataxe, the fearsome Vox Starstreamer--the same guitar that makes former bandmate Sonic Boom's cover of Mudhoney's "When Tomorrow Hits" much scarier than the original.

If there is one genuine surprise on the album, it is the bluesy, space-bop redux of his much older anthem "Lord, can you hear me?", his acclaimed redux of the classic spiritual, "May the circle be unbroken", from Playing With Fire (often considered Spacemen 3's second best album, just behind The Perfect Prescription). There was a time when Jason said he would never play any Spacemen 3 songs ever again. (Which made it quite a surprise when "Take Me to the Other Side" appeared on the Pure Phase tour.)

Altogether not as strong as Ladies and gentlemen, and nowhere near as cohesive as Pure Phase, but as colourful and earnest as either, and every bit as adventurous as Lazer Guided Melodies. When Jason suddenly turned off the road he was following with Sonic Boom up until the early 90's, probably he had no better idea where he was going than anyone else. And it's very doubtful that he's gotten within sight of his goal. But he is narrowing down his strategy for finding it, with increasing persistence, and perhaps with increasing desperation as well. No one can question Jason's sincerity: Sure, we all want happiness and peace, always elusive for all us. The unfortunate part is that some of the broader brilliance that was present and evident on the last two albums is being lost in his headlong rush for an epiphany that may never come, for any of us.

I really didn't want to like this album. It seemed that Jason Pierce was getting more and more full of himself; his releases more and more overproduced. Then I gave this a few spins, and while the above may be true, I must say he created something incredibly powerful. Not only is LET IT COME DOWN impeccably produced, arranged, and recorded; it truly puts the "spiritual" in Spiritualized. I never liked these guys as much as The Verve, but now I'm forced to re-evaluate. Ambition and feeling can exist side by side.

Okay, it took awhile for Ladies and Gentlemen to grow on me, but I play it all the time now. Let it Come Down is incredible. I love the way it switches tempos, and the songs are amazing. I Didn't Mean to Hurt You is a song I will never tire of. Buy this amazing CD now. You'll be glad you decided to give it a try.

Well I still haven't bought this album because I just started listening to Spiritualized after a long time. A long time ago I had decided I disliked them, but my mind is more open now, so I decided to listen to them, and I liked what I heard. Let It Come Down is a good CD, but the question is if It'll end up in the top or bottom of my CD collection. The CDs on here are a mixture of loud and soft, sad and joyful, and all with an element of gospel. I'd like a little more space rock in here, but I still love the album. The lyrics are really good, and I love "Stop Your Crying."