Cheap Amazing Grace (Music) (Spiritualized) Price

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Customer Reviews of Amazing Grace

As the rumors go, Arista had a fallout with them over the more raw, garage-ish sound and they were dropped, to be picked up by small label Sanctuary. This may or may not be true, but the album as a whole sounds in no way like Spacemen 3's (Spaceman's previous band) droning, trance-garage crunchy sound. The first song, "This little life of mine" is a modern, crunchy, rocky play on the "this little light of mine, i'm gonna let it shine" gospel song, and sounds exactly like you'd think: they gave the pastor an electric guitar, loads of feedback, and a drop of acid. The next song, first single "She kissed me (it felt like a hit)" sounds like classic early Spiritualized, with overt drug analogies and a catchy chorus, which then fades into the slow burner "Hold on," the first work of beauty on this disc. The song offers the simple advice of holding on to the ones you love, but as always, sounds sincere and almost deep coming from this band. Other slow ballads on the album, including "oh baby" and "ballad of Richie Lee" offer the familiar warm, endearing quality of songs like "Broken Heart" or "Stop your crying" but without the overblown, theatrical sound that some found annoying or pretentious.
In fact, that statement describes this album pretty well: it sounds like modern, non-electronically augmented Spiritualized, but without the pretentiousness apparent after the Pure Phase album. (Not that pretentiousness is necesarilly bad: "Ladies and Gentlemen..." is still my favorite Spiritualized album). Lightly augmenting the mix are horns, a few strings here and there, but none of the full-blown orchestrations of old. This sounds like the album Spaceman may have wanted to make all along: taut, gripping, resourceful, affecting, yet rip-roaring rocking when it wants to be.

If a bigger suprise happens this year in rock music, it'll have to be a damn good one because the fact is, Spiritualized are back and just as good, if not better, than ever. I can see this album making Arista come crawling back to its senses and Spaceman's doorstep, begging forgiveness. Luckily Spiritualized didn't need them to make yet another fantastic album - this is my second highest recommendation this year, behind the mighty "Hail to the Thief" by Radiohead - good praise indeed.

Here's a nice quote from "Hold on" one of my early favorites:
"Cause death cannot part us if life already has, hold on to those you hold dear." I'll take this bit of simple advice to heart, and you should too. Like much of his lyrics, this has a simple, pure beauty to it, and so does "Amazing Grace."

Amazing Grace may not be amazing, but still good
Comparing this CD with Spiritualized's more stellar releases will always fall short of expectations, but looking at 'Amazing Grace' as a seperate and distinct album is the point here. Their current effort combines the sonic jams of 'Ladies And Gentleman We're Floating And Space' and the gospel epiphanies of 'Let It Come Down'. In Jason Pierce's quest to find some divine enlightenment, Spiritualized seems to combine elements of their last 3 releases, blissed rockouts, heavenly choirs, and moodier introspective pieces. 'Amazing Grace' is more balanced than their last CD, generally a little more hardedged than spiritual catharsis, less overproduced with more direction. Some might find Pierce's search to find spiritual meaning in his music a tad formulaic and predictable. But instead of drawing inspiration from The Almighty with the last CD, perhaps the rock gods might be smiling this time around.

A noisy blast, and, hopefully, a hint of new directions
Just looking at the cover of this album - what I assume is Jason Pierce's arm, free of track marks - shows that some attempt is being made to escape past demons here. Not entirely successfully, I'd say. But the sound of this album is, to be sure, quite a break from the direction of Spiritualized's prior two offerings. Stripped down, raucus, noisy - this sounds closer to Pierce's old Spacemen 3 days than anything I've heard from him in a while.

Does it work? Sort of. As I said, Pierce can't quite let go of the demons. Perhaps because he suspects that, without herion and heartbreak, he wouldn't have anything to write about. (Which I hope is not the case). Whatever the case, the first half of the album is, while enjoyable and noisy (and yes, the second track has quite a clever name indeed), nothing all that new. It's almost as though, by stripping down, Pierce is revealing that he's been playing around with the same few song structures that he's been using for years.

Then, following the obligatory free-jazz joint 'The Power & The Glory,' things start to get more interesting. 'Lord Let it Rain on Me' uses the familiar gospel sound that Pierce has empoyed before, but weds it to a somewhat more conventional structure, resulting in another surprisingly successful flirtation with a pop song. 'The Ballad of Richie Lee' is unlike anything I've yet heard from Pierce - throbbing bass, atonal strings, semi-rhythmic distorted guitar, the usual anguished murmurs - it's quite good indeed.

And the rest of the album seems to follow in this vein, loosening up, and starting to branch out a bit. It's a weird, almost disjointed listen. I enjoy it, but it's not a masterpiece. What it is, I hope, is the taste of Spiritualized's future - a little more mature, a little looser, a little more thoughtful. Maybe Pierce just needed to one last blast at the demons. This gives me hope for the future and for coming albums.