SPIRITUALIZED: SONGS IN A AND E

[rating:4]

Spiritualized: Songs in A and E

Label: Fontana Universal

Release Date: May 26, 2008

In “Death Take Your Fiddle,” the 3rd song on Songs In A & E, Jason Pierce buries his take on Townes Van Zandt-ian tragicountry under the syncopated push and pull of an artificial breathing machine. While this device may seem heavy handed, it helps score what the listener has previously heard and will hear on Spiritualized’s latest. This set of songs may amount to the best Spiritualized album so far, and it’s in no part due to the willingness to use unconventional techniques, and in the case of Jason Pierce, that technique is consistently stepping up to the microphone.
With 18 songs and clocking in at nearly 1 hour, Songs in A & E tries extremely hard to maintain it’s tone and direction, and for the most part, it succeeds. At times, it seems like Pierce effortlessly trying to show the kids how it’s done, be it the classic 60’s riffing on “I Gotta Fire,” the Velvets-esque “Yeah Yeah” or the better than Oasis at being Oasis “Sweet Talk.” Even when trodding ground firmly lain by Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized, that ground being the beauty in the drone, Pierce shows an unbeforeseen Ace in the hole with the 2 chords and layer upon exquisite layer built upon “Baby I’m Just a Fool.”
The most unique moments, however, come when the instrumentation is sparse and the melody is carried by the vocals. Most powerfully carried out in “Don’t Hold Me Close,” a simple country song with a pretty melody and an even prettier sentiment, this willingness to not have layers of guitars be the basis of a song but letting the melody do that work, Songs in A & E lives up to it’s both modest & grandiose album title. Maybe a nod to the uber-classic Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, or maybe just a simple declaration of the musical timbre of the songs on the album, but definitely reaching for classic album status. While not fully realizing this goal, this shortfall is simply based on the inclusion of maybe 1 or 2 too many songs, not on the lack of strength of the ones that manage to build what is surely the most interesting and diverse set of songs ever to make it onto a Spiritualized LP, regardless of the key

-John Whitaker