Amazing Grace [EXPLICIT LYRICS]

Spiritualized

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 9, 2003)
• Original Release Date: September 9, 2003
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics
• Label: Sanctuary Records
• ASIN: B0000AQRZ8
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #59,337 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

In 1997, Spiritualized and Radiohead were locked in a duel of musical ambition. OK Computer earned more acclaim, but Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space is actually the better album—a glorious attempt by Spiritualized leader Jason Pierce to reconcile his breakup with keyboardist Kate Radley. Since then, Radiohead has gone on to make music even more challenging and adventurous—intellectually, at least—while Pierce, basically a solo artist with a revolving cast of hired hands, continues to ply orchestral pop and minimalist drones very similar to those he’s already produced. True, Pierce has an uncanny knack for gorgeous melodies, and he adds interesting touches to many of the 11 songs on Amazing Grace--pedal-steel guitar, gospel choirs, and trumpets that curl like cigarette smoke disappearing into the midnight air. But without the thematic heft of Lades and Gentlemen its best moments are exactly that—bursts of inspiration scattered among an album finds Pierce caught in a seemingly endless loop of his own making. It may still sound beautiful, but too often Amazing Grace comes off as mere formula. --Keith Moerer

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Hmmmm...., January 14, 2004

By	mike (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

I honestly still don't know what to think about this yet. I've been listening to it non-stop since it hit the shelves and while trying not to compare it to past Spiritualized releases, I still can't grasp some of this. On one hand, there are phenominal songs on here ("Hold On", "Oh Baby", and "Lord Let it Rain on Me"), but then there's tracks where they hit the distortion pedal and try to emulate the sound they seemed to have abandoned since their previous efforts. I really don't know if the record fits right as a whole. It all just seems like a square peg trying to get jammed into a round hole sometimes. Don't get me wrong, I love everything J. Spaceman has given me, and I'm almost positive that in due time this record will settle and become yet another favorite of mine, but be warned, both loyal Spaceman fans and new listeners, this album is more of an acquired taste than a quick fix of ear candy. This is still probably better most of the horse dung that got released in 2003.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Phenomenal, September 15, 2003

By A Customer

This is the best Spiritualized album since Lazer Guided Melodies and Pure Phase. And it is worlds better than the overproduced an artifical feeling Let It Come Down. I even feel it is better than Ladies and Gentleman... J. Spaceman has once again connected to the raw spirit and energy manifesting from within himself that defined those two earlier works. He has once again personified for me and given musical expression to the existential malaise, the eternal transcendental longing for truth, which is bound always to be frustrated, and the disgust with hypocrisy and the evils of entrenched and dogmatic institutions (i.e., organized religion and societal structures) which I myself feel so strongly and that could not otherwise be expressed with such powerful subtelty. He offers no clear-cut redemption, but the beautiful expression of the music and his soulful lyrics allows one to participate with him in this cathartic endeavour of unburdening the soul of negativity and disgust with everything, indeed with life itself, and both the listener, and I suspect Pierce as well, come out the other side transformed. For me, this album is nothing less than a metaphorical confession. I am simply spent after one full listening. But just as in the real confession in Christianity (which one can feel with palpable urgency has shaped Pierce's background and outlook -- even if only to afflict him with these unanswered doubts as if he were Job himself from the Book of Job), I continually need to come back for more. Preach on Brother Pierce, preach on! We need your medicine!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars beautiful, June 2, 2006

By	Michael Salmons (out in the garden shed) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I can finally say I agree with GOD on something... the Amazon review of this album is pathetic. Jason Pierce has finally done what I thought he should have done all along: fuse his beautiful songcraft with the Velvets-inspired adrenalin of early Spacemen 3. And the result is totally exhilarating. "This little life of mine" roars into life and you can just tell from the production and the performance, this song was recorded live. "She Kissed me" has a similar live feel. Whoever complained this was an unnecessary return to lo-fi in a bungled attempt to be more relevant (can't remember where I read that: Magnet? Mojo?) completely missed the point. Jason Pierce's music has always been about finding the source of life pulsing within our veins, the one thing that we all have in common. No rock artist has ever had such an intimate, poignant relationship with lifeblood. It's what makes Spiritualized such a fragile, bewildering, exhilarating- altogether HUMAN- experience.

As for the more spread out songs, mostly on side two (i own the vinyl), songs like "Rated X" and "Lay it down slow" belie a new complexity, evidence of further maturation of Pierce's songcraft. The maelstrom of noise at the end of "Lay it down slow" is the only way this bittersweet album could end. Amazing and wonderful. I couldn't stop listening to this album when I first bought it, and it shot straight to my shuffle (which means I want to listen to it a lot).