Customer Reviews

Let It Come Down (Limited Edition Package)

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

If there is a consistent theme that runs through the epic and sprawling musical universe that is Spiritualized, and frontman Jason Pierce in particular, its the never ending pursuit of redemption and bliss. Through three major albums and a majestic (official) live recording, Pierce has consistently blurred the lines between religion (a drug for some ), drugs (a religion for others) and love (a combination of both?). The result is an overall feeling of musical transcedence that, in a way, has become its own religion to a steadfastly loyal legion of followers.

But on their fourth major release LET IT COME DOWN  a Spiritualized album in name only, since Pierce sacked almost the entire band before its recording  the lines are less blurred. One look at the song titles (The Straight and the Narrow, Wont Get to Heaven, Lord Can You Hear Me?), and youll see that Pierce is leaning heavily toward the religious themes and gospel sounds he explored on 1997s LADIES AND GENTLEMAN WE ARE FLOATING IN SPACE. Much like George Harrisons 1970 album ALL THINGS MUST PASS, LET IT COME DOWN is the sound of a rock star, suddenly alone, calling out to a spiritual source for redemption. But in Pierces case, the results are mixed.

Despite being heavily promoted as a lush, orchestral recording, much of LET IT COME DOWN is surprisingly straightforward, with Pierces thin voice much more in the forefront. Largely gone are the ambient synths, avant-garde jazz noodlings and white noise of past recordings. Where songs on previous albums flowed into one another in an organic, almost cinematic fashion, many of the new songs have self-contained pop structures, with little extra atmosphere. This alone may be disappointing to longtime fans (especially those who listen with the assistance of certain substances).

It becomes clear through several songs on this album (especially the awful The Twelve Steps, a clunky satire on recovery programs) that perhaps Pierce needs a full band of collaborators after all. Now out in the forefront, he has little to say that hasnt already been covered ad nauseum on previous recordings. He still feels the bliss and pain of relationships, is still struggling with drug and drink, is still calling out to Jesus (and questioning His existence). Unlike, say, Mercury Rev, who continue to push sonic boundaries and themes with each recording, Spiritualized seem content to serve as an outlet for Pierces personal problems.

But when Pierce steps back and blends into the choirs and orchestras he assembled for this recording, one cant help but be swept away by Spiritualized again. The first single, Stop Your Crying is classic Spiritualized, with Pierce addressing the pleasure/pain and love, then gently comforting an unnamed baby atop a warm, gentle wave of orchestral strings and horns. And the final two tracks are nothing less than all-out church revivals, with Pierces suddenly explosive guitar (sorely missing from much of the album) propelling the choir to the heavens, much like the finale of Oh Happy Day on LIVE AT THE ALBERT HALL. Perhaps it all means nothing in the long run, and is a tad overblown, but if you dont get chillbumps, perhaps your pulse should be checked.

So, not a great album  but perhaps expectations were too high. Maybe their always mind-blowing live show will flesh out many of these tracks, and therefore rank this album higher on the Spiritualized scale.

This being the first and only Spiritualized CD I own, I can't compare it with LAGWAFIS etc....all I know is after I listed to this album once, the reaction was 'wow'. To get a quick taste, check out 'Don't Just Do Something', 'Straight and the Narrow' or the single 'Stop Your Crying'...in my opinion, the best songs on the album. Here it is song by song....

On Fire - A nice little start to the album. Upbeat, but a little simple. The very first line alludes to Spaceman's previous and/or ongoing drug/alcohol addiction ('Lets see how high we can fly/before the sun melts the wax in our wings')...a theme throughout the album

Do It All Over Again - Again, upbeat and catchy, simple and fun

Don't Just Do Something - I love this song. Perhaps the best on the album. Combines serious and hilarious lyrics, ie. 'I could lay in bed/like my mama said/"don't just do something,sit around instead"'. Nice, rambling verses, and a complete change in the middle. The kind of song you stop what you're doing to listen to

Out of Sight - Pretty song, nice rhymes, definitely worth checking out

Twelve Steps - A lot of people hate this song, and i'm not one of them. Certainly not the best on the album, but a nice, grungy change in a generally soft album. The only 'rockin' song on the album, and a pretty good effort

Straight and the Narrow - Aaah, another beautiful song. Great lyric for the chorus: 'the trouble with the straight and the narrow/is its so thin i keep sliding off to the side/and the devil makes good use for these hands of mine'. Definitely puts the 'spiritual' in Spiritualized, but in a way pretty much anyone can relate to.

I Didn't Mean To Hurt You - Great first verse...unfortunately its basically repeated throughout the whole song. Had potential, but its too repetitive

Stop Your Crying - The first single released, and a pretty darn good song. Nothing to get too excited about, but its nice and simple, and touching...'nothing hurts you like the pain of someone you love/there ain't nothing you can gain that prepares you enough'

Anything More - Really like this song. Kind of sleepy and relaxing

Won't Get To Heaven (The State I'm In) - Heavy religious theme (obviously), but in a nice way. The thing about spiritualized is that though many of their songs seem to have a Christian theme, its not a shove-it-down-your-throat kinda thing....Spaceman uses the themes in a way most can relate too, and it doesn't feel preachy at all. A beautiful song.

Lord Can You Hear Me - Absolutely beautiful. The perfect song to fall asleep to. Plaintive and affecting

I'm new to Spiritualized's music. "Let It Come Down" is my first Spiritualized cd. I bought it because for some odd reason I have been really curious to check out this particular album out. I got lucky this past weekend and found a copy of "Let It Come Down" in the used bins at my favorite record store. On the first listen, my initial reaction to this album was rather a negative attitude for the first couple of tracks but after a couple of listens I grew to love the entire album altogether. On immediate listen, I fell head over heels with "Don't Just Do Something", "The Straight and the Narrow", and "Stop Your Crying". Those three songs are the standout tracks on this album for me. The catchiness and melodies of the songs are tremendous. It took me awhile for "On Fire" and "The Twelve Steps" to grow on me, and sometimes great songs are like that, you don't like them initially but the more you listen to them, the more you like them. "The Twelve Steps" in particular sounds like something the highly overrated White Stripes and The Strokes with its garage rock sound. I couldn't help but notice that the entire album had a gospel vibe. I really dug it. Overall, I found "Let It Come Down" to be as good as I expected. I haven't been able to stop listening to it.

"Let's see how high we can fly,
before the sun melts the wax in our wings /
Let's see how fast we can go /
before our eyes can't follow the road"

It's been said (by me, anyway), that Spiritualized remains one of the safest ways to experiment with heroin (right behind Portishead's "Glory Box" and similar deep-fried samples of genius), and while a sometimes surprising departure from what may have been the expected trajectory in the wake of Ladies and gentlemen, it fulfills the expectation of dose/peak/slump/glide we've seen in Jason's earlier works, all the way back to early Spacemen 3 days. In fact, Let it come down is, in some respects, a virtual retrospective on highlights of his stylings throughout his entire career.

Again calling himself 'Jay Spaceman', as he did in Spacemen 3 days (perhaps finally starting to get past those scars?--he once said he'd never play any Spacemen 3 songs ever again), he has followed his nearly singleminded pursuit of a pure, direct, organic--truly spiritual--sound, for better or for worse, gradually shedding extraneous baggage along the way, including former girlfriend (and original bandmate) Kate Radley, and nearly everyone else willing to take that ride with him.

He now teams up with Kate's replacement, the brilliant Welsh synthesist Thighpaulsandra (once-and-future collaborator with such greats as Julian Cope and Coil, as well as a duly accomplished name in his own right), a handful of people who must have enormous endurance and patience, as well as a massive layout of more formal backing muscle, including a gospel chorus, a skullshaking horn section, and a warp-powered string section. Little Jay himself picks up ten different instruments, six of which are guitars, including his oldest and best friend, his Fender Jaguar--the piece that provided the anguished howl on so much of Spacemen 3's early repertoir.

The predominant sound is everything he's done already, plus some more, and more professionally engineered. There are the favoured 3/4 and 6/8 forms, though you'd never call it waltz, together with rolling swells of richly blended classic rock-n-roll hardware: Fenders and Gibsons, Hammonds and farfisas, and even a wonderful Gretsch drumkit that would be at home on any Beach Boys album, all blown through the requisite overheated tube amps.

Even so, the structure is much more broken up than on the unending spiral dream of Pure Phase or the symphonic epic of Ladies and Gentlemen. If this can be placed close to any earlier work, it would fit most comfortably next to Lazer Guided Melodies. The pieces are individual, and fully realised, sparing no room for the flat-out jams and noisy improvisations of Pure Phase and Ladies and Gentlemen.

Several of the tracks, especially in the middle, are drippy, incidental ballads that could be right off of Lazer Guided Melodies, and for that unfortunately largely constitute filler. And "Do it all over again" sounds like a Jason cover of a Jesus and Mary Chain song, no matter how many times I hear it.

By far the most outstanding track is the sledgehammer "Out of sight"--an intense, cellular piece that almost makes you able to say "power ballad" (without immediately thinking "mullet"), but to me also suggests the term "smack-dirge". Towering horns against a sprawling tapestry of strings and Hammond, along with the pounding Gretsch, provide the sensation of being in the proverbial handbasket, and for this number Jason drags out the heavy meataxe, the fearsome Vox Starstreamer--the same guitar that makes former bandmate Sonic Boom's cover of Mudhoney's "When Tomorrow Hits" much scarier than the original.
This track also offers some of the more insightful lines on the album, describing the ongoing dillema of his life, and the everpresent question of how he is spending it:
If I am good I could add years to my life /
I would rather add some life to my years /
Life is really what you make it, they say /
I can't even make my mind up today"
Within this, as on earlier albums, is some measure of rationalisation: "Out of sight is out of mind / Out of mind is out of sight" -- and, again as before, no answers, only the same questions, over and over and over.

If there is one genuine surprise on the album, it is the bluesy, space-bop redux of his much older anthem "Lord, can you hear me?", his acclaimed redux of the classic spiritual, "May the circle be unbroken", from Playing With Fire (often considered Spacemen 3's second best album, just behind The Perfect Prescription). There was a time when Jason said he would never play any Spacemen 3 songs ever again. (Which made it quite a surprise when "Take Me to the Other Side" appeared on the Pure Phase tour.)
Just when this warm bit of nostalgia ebbs away, it comes right back again in the (maybe not so surprising) 'secret extra track #11', this time as a glorious, gorgeous gospel number. Though "Out of sight" provides the momentum to get past the less substantive revisit of Lazer Guided Melodies stylings in the middle of the album, it is this earnest appear to the Powers that Might Be which echoes long after the album is over.

Altogether not as strong as Ladies and gentlemen, and nowhere near as cohesive as Pure Phase, but as colourful and earnest as either, and every bit as adventurous as Lazer Guided Melodies. When Jason suddenly turned off the road he was following with Sonic Boom up until the early 90's, probably he had no better idea where he was going than anyone else. And it's very doubtful that he's gotten within sight of his goal. But he is narrowing down his strategy for finding it, with increasing persistence, and perhaps with increasing desperation as well. No one can question Jason's sincerity: Sure, we all want happiness and peace, always elusive for all us. The unfortunate part is that some of the broader brilliance that was present and evident on the last two albums is being lost in his headlong rush for an epiphany that may never come, for any of us.

Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space was an undeniable masterpiece...an amalgam of druggy white noise and space rock ladened with heart-breaking emotions from Jason Pierce. Well, after a four year hiatus without any new material, one of space rock's greatest bands is back and better than ever. The slight religious influences Spiritualized explored on LAGWAFIS have now been blown out of proportion on Let it Come Down. If LAGWAFIS lyric's had a strong attachment to drugs and heartbreak, Let it Come Down connects with religion and love. In short, the lyrics and instrumentations of Let it Come Down show Jason Pierce has recuperated from his heartbreak circa 1997 with Kate Radley.
Pierce, however, employs a different lyrical style unlike any style I've ever heard or read. Throughout the album, Pierce uses several themes and particular lyrics. For example, he has some sort of infatuation with the sunrise as exemplified in the bouncy "Do it All over Again" and bluesy epic "I Didn't Mean to Hurt You." Also, Pierce takes a liking to the theme of fire, as seen in the opening blazer "On Fire" and once again in "I Didn't Mean to Hurt You". I'ts interesting to see how Pierce connects these themes throughout the album, and the result adds more strength to the Pierce's lyrics and to the album as a whole.
Undeniably, Religion plays a giant part in the album. Both paganism and Christianity have their own roles in the album. Pierce alludes to the Greek mythology character Icarus in the opening track "On Fire" with his snarling dare to see "how high we can fly before the sun melts the wax on our wings." Although Pierce drops hints of paganism in the album, it is mostly dominated by Christian faith. The epic gospel choirs spread throughout the CD really carry the album, acting as guidance for Pierce's band and their implied sinful nature (i.e. tracks like "Twelve Steps" and "The Straight and the Narrow"). The striking contradiction between tracks concerned with mankind's several vices and tracks concerned with religious redemption gives the album a defined theme and continuity.
Musically, this album definitely not a continuation of LAGWAFIS, as several people have claimed. There are several country music influences, from the languid "Don't Just Do Something" to the sway-inducing "the Straight and the Narrow." The feedback of LAGWAFIS has been toned down signifigantly and be converted into lush violin workings and grand gospel choirs. There are even hints of electronica on the album with the Stone Roses-esque "Won't Get to Heaven."
Although I enjoy LAGWAFIS more, there exists much more unity and cohesion in Let it Come Down. Despite a totally revamped band (basically all the bandmates from the previous album have been replaced by Pierce), the group once again delivers. A truly excellent album and definitely one of the bests of the year.

I really didn't want to like this album. It seemed that Jason Pierce was getting more and more full of himself; his releases more and more overproduced. Then I gave this a few spins, and while the above may be true, I must say he created something incredibly powerful. Not only is LET IT COME DOWN impeccably produced, arranged, and recorded; it truly puts the "spiritual" in Spiritualized. I never liked these guys as much as The Verve, but now I'm forced to re-evaluate. Ambition and feeling can exist side by side.

I waited a while to write this review because it took a while for me to really appreciate this album. My first experience with Spiritualized was when I purchased "Ladies and Gentlemen...". After falling in love with that album, I went out and purchased all their previous work. The 'Spiritualized' that sounds most impressive to me is their older stuff (Lazer Guided Melodies, and Pure Phase), even though "Ladies and Gentlemen..." was the first thing I listened to.

I was somewhat disappointed with their newest album, "Let it Come Down", after my first listen. But, after listening to it a few more times, and giving it some time to sink in, I realized that it's not a disappointment, but a revelation. On "Let it Come Down", Spaceman's music has a much more noticeable theme of Hope than on his previous albums. I was thrown off by this at first because I wanted to hear something more depressing, like what is given to us on his first two albums and "Ladies and Gentlemen...". Though "Let it Come Down" still has a very depressing side to it, it is more hopeful and seems to sound like a rehabilitated version of a Spiritualized album.

After having a recent loss in my family, I decided to just relax and let this album play out. It was on this listen, that I discovered the beauty I failed to see on previous listens. I guess what I'm saying is that this album will grow on you after time, but you must be patient. The actual music on this cd has more technical excellence than any of the previous Spiritualized albums, only the message is different. It might take a while for Spiritualized fans to hear this cd the way i think it was meant to be heard.

My favorite tracks on this cd include "Don't just do Something", "The Straight and the Narrow", "I didn't mean to hurt you", "Anything More", and "Lord can you hear me".

The biggest difference between "Let it Come Down" and previous albums is the religious content. I think this album is centered on the idea that God is the best drug around. I'm not a religious person, so I felt a little uneasy trying to enjoy the strong religious and gospel sound on this album. But, after listening to this cd when i was in need of some spiritual healing, I decided that this cd is purely brilliant, God or no God. After all, everyone has a different idea of what they think God is.

Okay, it took awhile for Ladies and Gentlemen to grow on me, but I play it all the time now. Let it Come Down is incredible. I love the way it switches tempos, and the songs are amazing. I Didn't Mean to Hurt You is a song I will never tire of. Buy this amazing CD now. You'll be glad you decided to give it a try.

Yes, he did... I've been reading other reviews where they compare this album to Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space and that's not a good point to start. Since this record has all the elements that Jason Pierce have used before for previous Spiritualized outputs (fuzz, jams, brass, strings, gospel choirs...) this doesn't mean Let It Come Down is repetitive or a copy. Like every of their records this one has really its own identity and works in different levels, high and low.
A song like "Stop yout crying" can make you smile or cry, depending your mood that day. The shiny pop of "Do it all over again", the fuzz of "Twelve steps", the chemical "The straight and the narrow", the dreamy "Out of sight" are also amazing tracks that makes this release and "Ladies and gentleman we are floating in space" (in 1st place) a must-have if you are interested in Spiritualized music.
For those who felt disappointed with this one, please give it another chance, after a few listens you will find a really great album by a unique band in british music.

Well I still haven't bought this album because I just started listening to Spiritualized after a long time. A long time ago I had decided I disliked them, but my mind is more open now, so I decided to listen to them, and I liked what I heard. Let It Come Down is a good CD, but the question is if It'll end up in the top or bottom of my CD collection. The CDs on here are a mixture of loud and soft, sad and joyful, and all with an element of gospel. I'd like a little more space rock in here, but I still love the album. The lyrics are really good, and I love "Stop Your Crying."