Flak Magazine: Spiritualized's Let It Come Down, 09.07.01

On the eve of the 1997 release of Spiritualized's third album, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, it was learned that longtime couple Kate Radley (keyboards) and Jason Pierce (singer/songwriter) had broken up. The details were fuzzy. Radley had played on Ladies and Gentlemen..., yet the album's lyrics, by Pierce, were largely about the breakup itself. Somewhere along the line, Radley had married Verve lead singer Richard Ashcroft. Probably in Monte Carlo or Rio.

Now there's nothing worse than starting a record review with a gossip highlight reel — particularly a review of an artist as esteemed as Pierce, who for the better part of 20 years has been honing his own brand of minimalist, spacey R&B and getting better all the time. Yet the time frame is important. Ladies and Gentlemen... is arguably one of the great post-breakup/heartbreak records in rock music. That's saying something, as Pierce is not exactly the first to address the subject.

But 1997 saw the release of another album, Radiohead's OK Computer. In fact, the two albums were released on the same day (July 1). While Ladies and Gentlemen received favorable reviews in both the United Kingdom and America, it would have been asking a bit much of critics to call two albums from England, from the late '90s, two of the great rock records of all time. (Naturally, UK critics gave it a go.)

This is not to say that Pierce's career is or should be measured by what critics think of him. But you could argue that Pierce has been unlucky or lost in the shuffle. He's an underdog, and it's a critical consensus that critics like an underdog. So do you.

The year is 2001 and Radiohead, having released two good albums post OK Computer, is considered by many to be the best rock band on the planet. Richard Ashcroft has spun himself into some sort of Hugo Boss/Sinatra persona, rendering him inconsequential to our story but for the fact that he still has the girl and is probably in Monte Carlo or Rio writing songs or looking off cliffs wearing sunglasses. He will not be mentioned again.

Let It Come Down, slated for release later this month, is Spiritualized's fourth studio album. Pierce showed marked improvement with his three subsequent releases. Except in 1999 he fired his entire band. Would he be able to better himself again?

No way. That would have been impossible. However, in dissecting the two releases, listening to them carefully time after time, taking into consideration the economic and political climates of 1997 versus 2001, adjusting for global warming (or lack thereof), and noting we are in a post-Kidman/Cruise era, a case can be made that in most ways Let It Come Down is as good as Ladies and Gentlemen.

And you only had to read 500 words to find that out. (If you've read Greil Marcus' review of the new Dylan album in the New York Times, you know what I'm getting at).

Let It Come Down is like Ladies and Gentlemen in scope, but the production is better. There are a few Stooges/13th Floor Elevators-style rockers ("The Twelve Steps" and "On Fire"), one glacial magnum opus ("Won't Get to Heaven (The State I'm In)") and a song ("I Didn't Mean to Hurt You") that directly brings to light the Stravinsky influence Pierce sometimes throws around in interviews.

This album's greatness takes hold in the middle, starting with track three. "Don't Just Do Something," which starts with a windup (launch) a la "200 Bars" from the debut album or the title track from Ladies and Gentlemen. After two minutes, the song vaults into a blissful, soulful passage with Pierce's best integration of a gospel chorus to date.

On Sam Cooke/Eddie Floyd-style R&B ballad, "The Straight and the Narrow," Pierce gives himself his toughest vocal workout yet. His voice doesn't compare to those guys, but he doesn't sound over-matched either. With a string section and mallet-played drums, "Do It all Over Again" could be viewed as Pierce doing Brian Wilson, and in a sense he is. The Beach Boys started as white guys playing soul and R&B riffs too. "Do It all Over Again" is the most fully realized song on a fully realized album.

Produced at Abbey Road studios, Let It Come Down gives the listener the sense that it sounds exactly how Pierce wanted it to. Everything is integrated: the hundred or so musicians and instruments, the choruses, and the basic five-man band line-up, which now includes keyboard/organ prodigy Thighpaulsandra (Coil, Julien Cope). A straight gospel song like "Stop Your Crying" would have overwhelmed Pierce in the past. It would have been placed last on the album because it had the widest scope and probably took the most work to produce. Here, it's a good song on a great album.

The only thing that's missing is that intangible quality that Ladies and Gentlemen had, the sort of aspect created by either love, heartbreak or both. A soul singer sings from his heart — and Pierce is truly a soul singer. On this record Piece's heart is in better shape than four years ago. Good for him ... maybe bad for us.

This isn't an album about Radley and the heartache she caused. Girls are largely out of the picture here. In that sense, I'd recommend this album to the Taliban. This is an album about loneliness, and what comes of that loneliness — in Pierce's case, taking time to consider redemption, but then taking drugs instead. When the new day dawns, he's feeling guilty and goes through the same cycle. Emphasis on cycle.

Let It Come Down is a fantastic album and closer in quality to Ladies and Gentlemen than Kid A was to OK Computer. Pierce has done it again. And if you like the underdog, you're also hoping the shops in Monte Carlo or Rio will carry it.

— Aaron Tassano (aaronaroundthecorner@yahoo.com)