Live Review: REVIEW: Spiritualized - Sweet Heart Sweet Light

SPIRITUALIZED are a band that exist on the edge. There’s a fascinating compulsion to the music: the chance that, at any second, they could fall off — into endless droning noise, or eternal gospel harmony; into dead-eyed drug overdose, or blissful ego death. The creative force and sole constant member of the band, J. Spaceman, has had serious health problems with pneumonia and technically died twice in 2005. That might be the best description of SPIRITUALIZED : balancing on the edge of life and death.

Any SPIRITUALIZED album approaches this balancing act differently, for better or worse: from the squalling psychedelic jams of their earlier albums, to the soul and gospel-soaked hymns of their latter material. Sweet Heart Sweet Light arrives on the heels of comments from J. Spaceman about embracing a pop approach, and in a way that’s true — keeping in mind that the Spiritualized version of pop is a bit different than what you'd consider 'pop'. ‘Little Girl’ and ‘Too Late’ might be the closest things to pop this band has ever done, but they still use string sections and sweeping vocal harmonies in a Spector-esque wall of sound.

Elsewhere, they let it all hang out. ‘Hey Jane’ (video NSFW!) is a stomping epic that goes for more than eight minutes without losing steam. These extended, spaced-out codas are a SPIRITUALIZED trademark used to full effect on Sweet Heart Sweet Light. Listen to the blissed out jams that end ‘Get What You Deserve’, ‘Headin’ for the Top Now’, and ‘Mary’, and then tell me it’s a pop album. Didn't think so.

Another SPIRITUALIZED trademark is an obsession with gospel music ,which comes through on the final two tracks of the album. ‘Life Is A Problem’ and ‘So Long You Pretty Thing’ are grandiose hymns, pleas to Jesus in soaring harmony. It sounds like J. Spaceman could just give up and float upwards into heaven at any second.

What to say about Sweet Heart Sweet Light? If you’re a SPIRITUALIZED fan, it’s a distillation of their discography, a refining of all the different directions they’ve headed in. If you’ve never heard SPIRITUALIZED before, this is them — a balanced hour of all the disparate elements of their music, standing on the edge but never quite falling off.

Words by Matt Nielson

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