Tha-Album Review: Spiritualized’s ‘Sweet Heart Sweet Light’
By Sadruddin Junejo / Tha-One.Music writer
In a rather slow week for album releases, I didn’t really have a wide choice for reviewing this time round. However, this turned out to be more of an upside than a handicap, because of the seventh studio album from space rock band Spiritualized which I am very interested in.
Anyone who’s been following the group would know how it formed from the remains of the famed Spacemen 3, with frontman Jason Pierce (a.k.a. J Spaceman) now the sole permanent member of the group. As usual, he took it upon himself to write, compose and sing all the band’s material. The result is an album that takes the traditional psychadelic space rock formula Jason Pierce is famous for and takes it to even more grandiose levels.
Indeed, as soon as 8:51 minute epic ‘Hey Jane’ kicks in you know you’re in for a ride. Expect orchestra strings, guitars with a shedload of reverb and more gospel choirs than you can shake a stick at throughout. The lyrics are the usual Spiritualized fare: death, religion and (who would have thought?) spirituality all make an appearance at some point, and while the writing is not universally top-notch (‘Send me a signal and I will recieve/ Jesus, please be there and take care of me’ off ‘Life Is A Problem’), coming from Jason Pierce’s mouth it just seems to work.
Overall, as with all Spiritualized albums this is probably as far away from easy listening as you can get, and as such would benefit from choosing the right time and place for the utmost pleasure. That said, I definitely recommend checking out this album at some point; Jason Pierce fans will be pleased, and anyone knew to the guy’s work will be blown away.
