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Spiritualized - 'Amazing Grace' review

added 19 May 2008 at 23.00

Jason Pierce returns in a determined mood to tackle the grandest of themes with Amazing Grace. Hear Spiritualized's fifth album in full.

'Amazing Grace's spirituality goes way beyond the religious overtones of its title. Even by Spiritualized's standards this is an album with a powerful soul burning at its centre. Whether by perception or design, drugs are another ubiquitous theme; the primitive rock 'n' roll of 'She Kissed Me (It Felt like A Hit)' is both a clever inversion of a particularly nasty old country song and another example of how love and drugs seem to be intimately linked in the world of Spiritualized.

Ultimately though this is a triumphant, healing album - 'Hold On' is nothing short of a hymn and 'Lord Let It Rain On Me' is a prayer in it's grace and desperation, if not in the fact that it boasts an unusually confrontational attitude for that particular idiom. At once simpler and more convoluted than 2001's 'Let It Come Down', 'Amazing Grace' is the work of a man who has found some peace but lost none of his fire. 

'This Little Life of Mine' [listen]
'She Kissed Me (It Felt Like A Hit)' [listen]
'Hold On' [listen]
'Oh Baby' [listen]
'Never Goin' Back' [listen]
'The Power And The Glory' [listen]
'Lord Let It Rain On Me' [listen]
'The Ballad Of Richie Lee' [listen]
'Cheapster' [listen]
'Rated X' [listen]
'Lay It Down Slow' [listen]

www.spiritualized.net

Tagged as Spiritualized, Releases

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