Spiritualized
Amazing Grace
Spaceman®/Sanctuary

At an early 2002 show in San Francisco's Warfield theater, following the release of Let It Come Down, Spiritualized's Jason Pierce (aka J. Spaceman) was barely even onstage. He stood, slouched and mopey, to the side, almost behind the curtain. His new band (he had just fired the old one) was just as apathetic. Save for some lazy foot-tapping, no one moved. The songs were grand, cinematic, swelling from the depths of a beat-up heart; Pierce and pals could've had the entire theater weeping right then and there and all the way home. Instead, people were falling asleep. Even Pierce sounded tired.

Maybe we'd sound that way, too, if we'd been singing about drugs, love and the Lord for almost 20 years as Pierce has (if not with this band, then with Spacemen 3). It's tiring stuff: the drugs wear off, the love fades and even His truly lets us down. So it's a feat that all these years later, there's still something left to say about the same ol' things and still people left to care.

Well, some people still care, but Pierce doesn't really have anything new to say with Spiritualized's fifth studio outing, Amazing Grace. Which is fine because some bands work that way. You know who to turn to if you have a hankering for psychedelia, the dejected, sluggish whisper of a lover and swirling guitars with a small helping of the Lord. Call it a pigeonhole, but it's more like a monopoly. Need some music for taking drugs to? Spiritualized. Need some music for making out to? Spiritualized. Need some music to listen to while saying your bedtime prayers? Spiritualized. And to lull you to sleep right after all those things? Who else? Spiritualized.

That creepy yet beautiful, disconnected arm on the cover of the album almost beckons with its slightly extended index finger. Somehow, it's not saying "come here" but rather "come back" — because Amazing Grace is a return to a place Pierce never really left. The droning start of opening track "This Little Life of Mine" plugs us back to the rockier parts of 1995's Pure Phase with Pierce growling over kamikaze chords, twisting the familiar "This little light of mine/ I'm gonna let it shine" line to "This little life of mine/ I'm gonna let it slide" in true self-defeating form.

A return to form, though, doesn't imply a return to greatness. Pierce has always sounded a bit exhausted, but before, that tired drawl owed to listlessness, and we could sympathize with a man whose hard knocks kicked the spirit out of him. In fact, our sympathy was the draw. But that lagging coo sounds bored now, indifferent, regardless of any backing choir, full orchestra, electric guitar and everything else, and we're thinking, "Still?" By the end of the third track, Pierce has already touched on Spiritualized's three main themes (drugs, love, Jesus). And just after the first two, you'd think (sadly) he's traded in the gospel choir of earlier works for garage-rock guitar riffs and assaultive vocals. But "Hold On" and "Oh Baby" are balmy and psalmy, with Pierce pleading over a swaying guitar and gently wheezing harmonica, or twinkling piano à la Let It Come Down, if a little empty.

Excluding the kinetic "Cheapster," in which Pierce's nasally rant could mistake him for a British Jack White, the remaining tracks could've fit on that album, too (with some slick production). Pierce's departure from his old label to his own for this opus doesn't indicate a huge leap, or any at all. With the same subjects, only the final cut, "Lay It Down" and the humble "Lord Let It Rain on Me" hint at the soulful immediacy of 1997's almost-masterpiece Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space. In "Lord..." a drumbeat comes in slowly like a still heart that's decided to start pumping again. His voice cracking and worn back to substance, Pierce mutters,

Jesus Christ, when your back's against the wall/ show how to be grateful when you've nothing here at all/ Say that hell's below us, Lord/ heaven can be mine/ I don't believe your promises/ I don't believe your lies.

At last, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, however weary it may be by now.

— Lavina Lee (lavina at flakmag dot com)