by Ljubinko Zivkovic (@zivljub)
When you delve and at the same time fix your music within a specific genre, there are three ways you can approach it. You can strictly follow the patterns already established before you, or you can go on exploring elements within it either by making small evolutionary moves, or by taking big leaps into more unknown territory. Throughout their career, Spiritualized has done all three with their take on psychedelic rock. They would take seemingly small steps in re-shaping the standard psych formulas or they would take big leaps into the unknown, using the basic psych elements as their base. At that, their best albums usually included both. That seems exactly what was happening on their fifth album Amazing Grace, which received a new fresh reissue last month.
Essentially, as has already been noted, it is Jason Pierce and the band’s psychedelic take on the influence of traditional gospel on the genre, where the psych elements are renewed and refreshed, and the gospel side is getting a detailed overhaul. On other releases, the band would go completely raucous or completely calm and tranquil. Here they do both - making it one of their most accomplished and realized releases.
While the two introductory tracks, “This Little Life of Mine” and “She Kissed Me (It Felt Like A Hit),” sound like a modernized version of standard psych rock, throughout the rest of the album Pierce and the band go on slowly introducing (and slowing or speeding it up) their vision of gospel. Spiritualized manipulate the genre through the eyes (and ears) of psych heads with an almost grandiose introduction to “Hold On”. From there it shifts into a true gospel tune, further developed on “Oh Baby,” and reaching true intricacy and development on “The Power And Glory” with the introduction of brass and “'Lord Let It Rain On Me”. It just might be one of their most accomplished albums and with its new enhanced audio values it just might be an essential release in the modern psychedelic rock cannon.