Album Review: Spiritualized - Sweet Heart Sweet Light

Jason Pierce has had a storied career as a neo-psychedelic shoegaze pioneer in the one-chord mantras of Spacemen 3. That group split rather acrimoniously in the late eighties, leaving Pierce and some of the remaining members to form Spiritualized. Debuting in 1992 with Lazer Guided Melodies, the group reached more fully for the stratosphere then even his previous band, sublimating the psychedelic influences that were prevalent in the heady currents of British music at the time. The band had a major breakthrough with 1997's Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space, which unveiled at deeper gospel influence that has since become much more prominent on their later records, particularly 2001's Amazing Grace. Before he was able to record 2008's Songs In A&E, however, Pierce nearly died of pneumonia, and it was this brush with death that, for better or worse, has influenced the songs of Spiritualized's latest record, Sweet Heart Sweet Light.

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