Spiritualized -‘Sweet heart, sweet light.’ (Double Six/Domino)

Ah, J. Spaceman. We have been expecting you. Again. And once more the latest album from Spiritualized does not disappoint.

It’s now twenty years since their debut Lazer Glided Melodies and fifteen since the draw-dropping Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, their seventh album shows Jason Pierce and his team continuing to brew up a heady mix of avant rock, jazz, gospel, soul and God knows what else. It’s marvellous.

Over the last two months, the single ‘Hey Jane’ (available at the bottom of this page) has delighted as a song and raised eyebrows with that video. It’s an album highlight, but the good news is that it’s not another ten facsimiles of that song. The themes of someone searching salvation and trying to find answers continue and the audio confection on display as ever is one that there is much enjoyment ahead to be had just listening to all and digesting each little bit.

The final two tracks ‘Life Is a Problem’ and ‘So Long You Pretty Thing’ take the album out on a high. There is so much soul-searching that goes on in music and most of it is pretty tiresome. But lyrically, musically, track by track and as a whole package, Spiritualized eneter their thrid decade as a band never less than compelling.

****1/2

Sweet heart, sweet light is out on April 16 on Double Six/Domino.

Spiritualized will release their first new studio album for four years on April 16.

Entitled Sweet Heart Sweet Light, the artwork is at the top of the page. The first track to be released as a single from the album is entitled ‘Hey Jane’ which you can stream here. It’s a great track, which, as you will find out when you listen to it, is two tracks for the price of one.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. Huh? (intro)
2. Hey Jane
3. Little Girl
4. Get what you deserve
5. Too late
6. Headin’ for the top now
7. Freedom
8. I am what I am
9. Mary
10. Life is a problem
11. So long you pretty thing

The ten minute vide for ‘Hey Jane’ is, er, eye-opening to say the least. NSFW is an understatement (Not Safe For Work. Do keep up). You may want to be careful showing it to anyone under eighteen, given its themes of violence, sex, death, and cross-dressing. If you are easily offended, or don’t like having your bourgeois sensibilities challenged (what are you doing here?), then do not watch.

If you are over eighteen and can make decisions for yourselves, then it’s up to you.

Spiritualized -‘Songs in A&E’ (Sanctuary)

I have to confess, this has been one of those albums on my ‘hmm, must get round to hearing’ rather like Primal Scream and Metallica, on the ‘I like the stuff I’ve heard by them over the last decade and more, cannot afford to buy it just yet’ list. And now I’m kicking myself at having, frankly, denied myself the pleasure.

Because, quite frankly, as The Wire had pointed out, this is their most compelling set for a decade. That album was the genre-busting psychedelic masterpiece Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. Rather like many other records of the time, it was a fantastic record that did well, critically and commercially, and was not dissimilar in vein to records that followed by Mercury Rev (Deserter’s Songs and All Is Dream; Grandaddy’s The Sophtware Slump; and of course Flaming Lips’ The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.

And rather like the follow-up albums from many of these artists, Spiritualized’s next two studio albums Let It Come Down and Amazing Grace were good albums, but just not as amazing as we’d hoped they’d be. But this album is frankly, amazing. A gorgeous mixture of all that we have loved Spiritualized before. This confirms that Jason Pierce (or J. Spaceman, as he is credited on pretty much every Spiritualized album) is a genius. Genuinely a Brian Wilson for our times, who is trying to get the angelic music out of his head and down in the recording studio.

And from start to finish, the album does not let up. It never drags nor dips, and makes you want to go back and listen to it from start to finish again. Like many multi-layered albums it’s a headphone work that beenfits from being listened to closely as it yields more and more of its’ charms.

J. Spaceman is once again firing on all cylinders. Be sure to enter and be wowed.

****1/2

Spiritualized’s official website/www.myspace.com/spiritualized

The videos cannot be embedded as the code been disabled by request (why?!) but here are the links to go and watch ‘You Lie You Cheat‘ and ‘Soul On Fire‘

The tracks can also be streamed at myspace above.