836 Spiritualized - Let It Come Down (2001)

 836 Spiritualized - Let It Come Down (2001)

Studio album - Symphonic Rock



About the Act:

Started 1990, still going. Space Rock/Neo-Psychedelia/Shoegaze. English. Led by Jason Pierce, who used to be a Spaceman. 8 Studio albums so far.


About the Album:

This album is the band's fourth, and took 4 years to create. It uses 115 session musicians including an orchestra and the London Community Gospel Choir. Phil Spector was parly involved in its creation.


My History with this Album:

None


Review:

I don't know where to start.

OK, let's start with this. I did not expect this album to be like this. I have heard of Spiritualized, but didn't know anything about them really. I think I thought they might be electronica or ambient or something like that. I was wrong. They are kind of spacerock/new psychedelia, like The Verve, and I guess they were contemporaries of that scene, the emerging Britpop thing at the time. But that really doesn't give a coherent picture.

Take a Britpop psychedelic band, with a penchant for dirty electronic synth sounds (a bit like a distorted stylophone) and add things. Add soaring guitars and big drums and go on, throw in an orchestra, and on top of all that, the LCGC (gospel choir). The sound is huge, humungous. Musically it's balancing between the rock and the gospel, and the almost orchestral (well literally orchestral, but that sort of big classical sound). There are a few hints of bluesiness and souliness as well, especially when the resophonic guitar is used. Musically, I really like it, and especially the choir hits my heartstrings. It is carefully, wonderfully and meticulously produced, which isn't to say it's clinical. It's full of feel and emotion, which serves the album well. There is also one of the most beautiful ride cymbal sounds ever, and the production is such that even with many other things going on, its gentle ticking cuts through. 

However, unlike many albums, all this work is a means to an end, and the end is the album and the, well I hesitate to call it message, more a sort of journey. This is an album with meaning. It's a concept album. 

Disclaimer: what follows is what I read into the album, I'm fairly confident that this was intentional, but I cannot be absolutely certain.

The album is an emotional and spiritual journey. Sadly, quite a bleak one. It starts full of life and bombastic hedonism , moves through indolence, substance abuse and self-centred self-destruction, visits regret and pain and ends in spiritual paucity and despair: 

"Lord, help me out

I'd take my life, but I'm in doubt

Just where my soul will lie

Deep in the Earth or way up in the sky

Lord can you hear me when I call?"

The whole journey is washed with appropriate music to drag the listener along and the end effect is profound in a way few albums can manage. I'm deeply impressed with it, both with the message and the creativity that brings it. It has impacted me almost as much as a classic Pink Floyd album. 


9/10


Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/4P3KaftJ2WwL89iKIEkWai

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCX_SlmERpRM5bjKz2kyW1WFapFJTqNAp

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_It_Come_Down_(Spiritualized_album)



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