Spiritualized - Sweet Heart Sweet Light

How long again did "Hey Jane" leak? I feel like I've totally heard this song before...

Oh wait.. I heard it on the radio last night. That was it.

I listened to this on Saturday and was pretty unimpressed, it picks up at the end a bit but otherwise it just feels like a trudge.

http://thequietus.com/articles/08533-spiritualized-sweet-heart-sweet-light-review

Thoughtful of the Quietus to put that Huh?.jpg next to that nonsensical first line.

That's a terribly-written review actually.

yeah that review is appalling. by "subterfuge" I think he means "antidote", although I'm not really sure

I also don't think it's true that Spiritualized's reputation rests entirely on "Ladies and Gentlemen...".

The morose lyrical ambiance is off set by a winsome string / jangling guitar combination that sounds like Cast. There is a strong late 90s pop sensibility at play elsewhere, too. 'Get What You Deserve' smacks of something that Ian Brody of the Lightening Seeds would come out with, were he asked to write a song in the style of George Harrison

There's also a drum beat reminiscent of Shedd Sevan.

To say nothing of Guy Dodd

I'm yet to meet anyone who considers them merely 'alright'.

sup

it's too bad that this album is getting such a bad rap! it's true that it's kind of a boring album, but "hey jane," "headin for the top" and "so long you pretty thing" are all mega-classics imo, and scattered strategically so that their good vibe carries over to the next song, and the whole thing is a delicious treat. that's what i think anyway.

also reading this thread, i remembered that shakey mo collier is a michael moorcock character and that's why i'm really posting, sup dude??

i don't *really* care about lyrics, but dag

mark iv otm, imo

yep

also sup

bad rap? http://www.metacritic.com/music/sweet-heart-sweet-light

I think So Long... will definitely become one of my favourite Spiritualized songs. There's just something infectious about it.

Nice live version here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbYm6GlAm8o

I'm seeing them in a week and a half and am gonna spend the time re-listening to everything. I just got my hands on the 3CD "Ladies and Gentlemen..." set and all of the "I Think I'm In Love" demos are so fucking gorgeous.

word. i really love the straight acapella demo of the "suuuuuunnnnnn, so bright that i'm nearly blind" vocals from the first half.

i'm seeing them (for the first time!) on monday and i am so fuckin excited.

that 'Pretty Things' video weirdly makes me a bit nervous about the show though. i love the new album and i love that song, but it seems a little flat or phoned-in there.

seen them over half a dozen times and it's usually a great show. there was only one set I was disappointed by, and that was on the Let It Come Down tour and things just seemed sloppy (drummer missed cues, Jason forgot lyrics, etc.)

did you ever see them with the full array of guitars/synths/strings/choirs etc?

yep - both the LAGWAFIS and the LITC tours were like that. LGM tour was a five-piece augmented by a sax/flute player iirc. And then the Pure Phase tour was just a quartet, and that was honestly the best version I think. Also saw the recent small tour he did with just Dogen on piano plus trio of backup singers and a string quartet. It's always a little different. The light show does a lot of work lol.

Loved the Pure Phase tour, which might as well have been called the small clubs and strobe lights tour. I saw them a couple of times behind LAG, once opening for Radiohead at their "OK Computer" peak. Seen them a few times since then - a surprising number, actually - and will see them again tomorrow night, though of course every show has been more or less the same.

lol I left after Spiritualized's opening set for Radiohead (who I have never cared for fwiw). It was weird seeing Spz play truncated versions of all their songs.

Pure Phase tour was really special, feel like that was the one time I really just could not figure out how such a small group of people were making all that sound

Radiohead tour was also the peak of their internal discontent, iirv

I never realized the song "Pure Phase" was just a milder "Ecstasy Symphony" until just now. I always assumed Sonic Boom was the one behind that one.

On Letterman tonight...

http://p.twimg.com/AsUqMe7CMAA8gk5.jpg

I never realized the song "Pure Phase" was just a milder "Ecstasy Symphony" until just now. I always assumed Sonic Boom was the one behind that one.

He was. There's some minor differences and FWIW, "Symphonic Space" on LGM is Jason (but using the same principle)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx2ImCXMw8U&feature=youtu.be

Sounds good! Solipsism.

Better than I expected. Wanted the all-too-brief noise break at the early 3:00 mark to keep going, though.

NPR is streaming live video/audio from their Washington DC show right now: http://www.npr.org/event/music/152291064/spiritualized-in-concert?ps=mh_frhdl1

They were pretty good last week, but I have a feeling the band can do this in its sleep. I wish it were a bit ... free-er.

Funny admission: it was not until last week that I realized, all these years later, that the title "Cop Shoot Cop" was a drug pun. I just always thought of it like "Spy Vs. Spy" or "Man Bites Dog."

huh I never got that either. I thought it was a reference to cop-on-cop violence.

I like this record pretty well. Sometimes I feel like the bass is missing, it feels a little thin in places. Like you can hear basslines but it doesn't have any punch. I'm sure that's an aesthetic choice in how they mixed it but I wish there was more low end.

So Long is pretty good...

Oh my GOD! We got to hear "Ladies and Gentlemen...", "Come Together", "Electric Mainline", and !!!"WALKING WITH JESUS"!!! Plus a near-30 minute encore with "Cop, Shoot, Cop" (which I was never crazy about on the album but was transcendent live), and at the 15 or so minute mark they did one of those end-of-show freak outs where all the musicians play their instruments all crazy for like five minutes, except instead of ending the show they abruptly went back into the mellow part for another 2 or 3 and ended really gently. It was such a brilliant and incredible thing.

I seriously was not expecting them to be as incredible as they were. I don't think I've seen a show that good since LCD

Yeah, I never noticed the "Cop Shoot Cop" pun until right now. Clever.

I don't feel so bad for not figuring that out until about three months ago, and this is after me owning albums by the band with said name for years.

Super psyched to get to see them tomorrow in Austin...I dig the new record a bunch.

Jason on the cover, writing the album, etc. etc.

@SteveDeux you know that's exactly how Cop Shoot Cop is on the album, right?

I never really cared for/paid close attention to the album version

saw them last night in SF, they were fantastic. I haven't seen them since the Rollercoaster tour in the US, and I thought they were super boring then.

also we had cute backup singers

i still don't get the pun

cop heroin shoot heroin cop heroin

cop shoots another cop with a gun

rmde at you people

lmfao@upeeps