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)



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

840 Various Artists - The Best of Girl Groups Volumes 1 and 2 (1990)

Image
 840 Various Artists - The Best of Girl Groups Volumes 1 and 2 (1990) Compilation (double) - Girl Group (Soul/Bobby Soxer/Do-Wop) About the Album: This is a highly acclaimed compilation in 2CDs by Rhino Records. It's the sort of thing that in this country you might expect to see at 3.99 in a Garden Centre. My History with this Album: None Review: There are not many multi-artist compilations in this series for reviewing. There is not information about it on Wikipedia, but the reception seems to have been positive. It is choc-full of hits with a smattering of lesser-known songs, and it's hard not to imagine Grease or similar situations - girls with cardigans and white socks, listening to the juke box while sipping milkshakes in the drug store. On one level it's a fun collection of songs that you could use to feel nostalgic, or as the music for a themed party. On another level it's kind of like a cultural artefact. I feel honour-bound to describe it, even though if I drop
Read more

944 Manu Chao - Próxima Estación Esperanza (2001)

Image
 944 Manu Chao - Próxima Estación Esperanza (2001) Studio Album - World Music About the Act: Manu Chao is a French-Spanish musician of Spanish descent who grew up on the outskirts of Paris. In the mid-80s he was in a Spanish/English rockabilly group called Hot Pants. In 1987, with his brother and cousin he founded the band Mano Negra, combining punk and world music influences and playing on the Paris Metro. This band took off and had 4 studio albums. In 1995 Manu "went solo", forming the band Radio Bemba Sound System to be his backing band. The punk elements were less prominent, but he started to make music that "replicates the sound of street music and bar scenes from a variety of cultures". He has been really popular in parts of Europe.  About the Album: This album was Manu Chao's second studio album as a "solo" artist. In Spanish, the name means "Next Station: Hope", after a real station on the Madrid Metro. The album reached top 10 slots
Read more

591 Harry Smith, Ed. - Anthology of American Folk Music (1952)

Image
 591 Harry Smith, Ed. - Anthology of American Folk Music (1952) Compilation Album - Americana About the Act: Harry Smith is not the performer here, he is the collector. He was a film-maker, occultist, and eccentric. About the Album: Harry Smith had a collection of early 78rpm records of various "folk" styles dated from 1927 when such things first started to be commercially available to 1932 when the Great Depression put a stop to the sales of folk records. In 1947 he approached a label, Folkway Records, about releasing a collection of them transferred onto LPs. This they did in 1952, without seeking copyright permission, making this technically a bootleg. It was released as three double-LP boxed sets, and sold very poorly. In the first year it sold 50 copies, 47 to libraries and colleges. It was reissued later, and gained traction and sold better. It now has a reputation for being one of the most influential compilations in the history of Americana, and is cited as being a ma
Read more