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26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Exhilarating, March 31, 2000
This review is from: Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (Audio CD)
It's been quite some time since a band has challenged me the way Spiritualized has. When I first heard them, live at a recent Radiohead concert, I must confess I was less than impressed. I couldn't understand what all the hype was about (they're on almost every critic's Top Ten list). They had no stage presence and their loosely structured songs were hard to get into in a live setting. Yet, something drew me back to them and I found myself purchasing this CD. I'm glad I did. The packaging of the CD implies prescription medication and I guess "Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating in Space" is a bit like medicine -- bitter and hard to swallow at first, but sure makes you feel good after the initial dosage. The band and the music are hard to describe. I guess Spiritualized is what you'd get if you threw Radiohead, The Beatles and Sonic Youth in to a blender. They've got a sort of techno, ambient vibe, but the guitars screech and wail, the lyrics ramble on and at times it sounds more like they're smashing their instruments than playing them. They definitely pack a sonic wallop and their seemingly meandering songs come together at the end each and every time leaving you more satisfied with each listen. I think they're one of the truly unique and fresh bands out there and I recommend this album highly.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's not just a modern album it's a modern opera, September 16, 2003
This review is from: Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (Audio CD)
Definitely a love 'em or hate 'em band, Spiritualized transcends modern music in this epic opera of lost love, addiction as a means of forgetting and finally acceptance and redemption. Jason Pierce (a.k.a. J. Spaceman) writes and produces each individual note on the entire album, which is no small feat given the vast array of sound and style. His music is melodic and complex without being too pretentious, but it's his brilliant lyrics that truly set him apart from a thick ocean of artists like Radiohead and Verve. So turn off the lights, put on some headphones and get comfortable. It opens up with the airy title track that bleeds into an injection of adrenaline and bounces back and forth between moments of primal rage, lust and loss. "I Think I'm in Love" starts with a dreamy swirl of sound taking the listener through a heroin injection before seemlessly switching into a quicker paced series of contradictory dialogue - "I think I'm in love...maybe you're just lonely" truly one of the highlights of the album. For anyone who's ever truly been in love and abruptly dumped this album speaks like a support group. If you've ever drank to forget it almost sounds like words you wish you'd written first, "sometimes I have my breakfast right off of a mirror - or sometimes I'll have it right out of a bottle" - Home of the Brave. The real highlight of the album though is in it's emotional abyss, "Broken Heart" - a song so desperately honest it hurts to listen to. He doesn't try to get clever or academically poetic with the lyrics - it's too emotional for that he just hits you with the straight shot "Lord, I have a broken heart...and I'm cryin' all the time." the lyrics are accompanied by a sweeping set of strings that seem to lull you to the brink of tired as you become emotionally spent. Then after you take a deep sigh and catch your breath, church bells ring and after some horns come in you are led to the beautiful "Cool Waves" which could really be the end of the album right there. But, it's not. The bluesy and sinister Cop Shoot Cop takes you out. At well over 13 minutes this song carries you back slowly to where you started and when you turn on the lights and turn off the cd player you're amazed that everything you just went through came from 70 minutes of music. It's not for everyone though, people with a less patient ear won't appreciate the intricacies of the sounds or the lyrics and may even take a few turns to really get into it - but once you do it'll be like nothing you have ever heard or experienced before and all you'll ask yourself is: "How the hell did I go this long without even knowing that this masterpiece existed?"
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Float in Space and Drift in Time, May 12, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (Audio CD)
Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space is, quite simply, the most accomplished, complete and intensely personal musical statement of these last ten years. This lengthy album brims with a scope that most records wouldn't dare to aspire to and pulls it off with dramatic, melancholic panache. Spiritualized is a collective that, in this incarnation, feature a full band, gospel choir and enough electronics to power the internet. Yet, in the middle of the maelstrom, the vision is one man's alone: Jason Pierce is a man who's music burns with intense longing, occasional self loathing and an unerring ear for both the grand and the minute. "All I need in life is a little bit of love to take the pain away" may sound like nothing in print, but when Pierce intones the words over a the radio traffic of a NASA mission, with building basslines leading into a killer melody, you'll know this is one space cadet who's worth following. From initial longing, to obsession, loss and finally a sort of redemption, the music follows the arc of a relationship in a way that belies the pretensions of concept music and always feels rooted in a scary and uncertain reality. Pierce has managed to create a work which feels like a full bearing of the soul, in turns tragic and uplifting. If love is all and even that dissolves, what persists then? The answer is here and is simple: art. Great art.
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