Spiritualized
Let It Come Down
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Spiritualized
Let It Come Down
Arista, 2001
RiYL: Mercury Rev, Lambchop, Sigur Ros, The Staple Singers |
The former Spaceman 3 co-leader is back with his fourth album under the Spiritualized moniker, and it's about what you'd expect -- songs about drugs, despair and salvation filtered through a wide-screen lens of orchestral minimalism. That is to say, Pierce writes simple songs, but doesn't prefer simple execution. For Let It Come Down, he utilized over 100 musicians, including a large choir and orchestra.
Let It Come Down goes a long way toward fulfilling many of Pierce's musical ambitions. He's long been moving toward this kind of rock-gospel fusion (and indeed, the 1998 concert album Live At The Royal Albert Hall, recorded with an orchestra and choir, is the closest touchstone in the Spiritualized catalog), but has never quite acheived it to this level in the studio.
The interesting thing is that, for all its bombast, the album is lacking some of the dynamism of previous Spiritualized efforts. The probable cause for this is the instrumentation. While Let It Come Down's studio predecessor, 1997's Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space had songs ranging from the 14-minute R&B jam "I Think I'm In Love" to the distorted rave-up "Come Together" to weeping ballads like "Broken Heart," the new album is more of a piece - the songs flow into each other like one continuous stream, with tempo and timbre changes coming at a far more gradual pace.
Yet somehow this sonic makeup fits the songs better. Spaceman has always revelled in repetition and slow builds toward exalted climaxes, and what better way to execute those concepts than with liquid sonics like this? Without the rocky terrain, Let It Come Down sounds like a river whose current speeds up and slows down in response to the singer's emotion.
And Pierce's emotion this time around seems to come from his usual inspirations: drugs, their ingestion, and the ups and downs of a chemically distorted psyche. The first lyric of the album (from "On Fire") is "Let's see how high we can fly before the sun melts the wax in our wings." A sneering thesis statement, echoes of which will pop up in songs like "Out Of Sight" ("Out of sight is always out of mind / but I think out of mind is out of sight") and "Won't Get To Heaven (The State I'm In)" (title should be self-explanatory).
Musicians have long attempted to express and explore the spiritual side of drug-taking, and Spaceman has simply built a career out of it. He definitely addresses the downsides of his favorite chemicals -- singing about falling asleep and burning cigarette holes in his couch on "Do It All Over Again" -- but even in songs whose titles seem to touch on the concepts of rehab ("The Twelve Steps," "The Straight And The Narrow"), he rejects moral grandstanding in favor of controlled experimental indulgence. "It's alright, because I know my own way home from here," he explains to a worried confidante on the latter. "I'll dive as deep as I can go / don't hold your breath cuz I'm coming up slow."
And truth be told, he does sound in control of his dives. Spaceman fancies himself a spiritual explorer and his tales from the outer reaches of human existence are compelling musical documents. Not everyone has the bollocks to hire 100 musicians to make a gospel rock album about drugs, and Jason has done just that, with great success.
TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.