Spiritualized: Amazing Grace : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

British psychedelicist Jason Pierce, or J. Spaceman, as he prefers to be called, began his career in 1983 as part of Spacemen 3 and has been insisting ever since that drugs and wah-wah pedals are way cool. Amazing Grace is more of the same: droning guitars, walkie-talkie vocals and pseudoredemptive song titles such as "Lord Let It Rain on Me." True, "Oh Baby," borne aloft by heavenly choirs and bells (possibly tubular), could be something from a golden-era Stones record, but the feedback jam "The Power and the Glory" is just a rehash of Iggy and the Stooges' "L.A. Blues" (recorded thirty-three years ago). Both point out Spiritualized's central flaw: They play like their idea of trippy music calcified in 1971.What's worse is that the Bible talk and the vintage-guitar distortion sound so rote it's hard to imagine Pierce is baring his soul rather than just plumbing the depths of his record collection.

PAT BLASHILL
(RS 935, November 13, 2003)