DanW
Contributor
Joined: 06 Jun 2008
Posts: 4
Location: London
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 Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 12:54 pm Post subject: Spiritualized album review |
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The lead singer of Spiritualized, Jason Pierce, almost died of pneumonia in 2005. Three years on with a new album entitled Songs in A&E it’s clear he’s not shying away from the incident. Having said that, a lot of this lyrics were written before his prolonged hospital stay but Pierce has said when he looked at them again he found them similar to what he’d been through. Spooky.
The ominously titled Death take your Fiddle is the most 'hospital -inspired’ track, with an accordion played to sound like a breathing ventilator providing the rhythm throughout. Its central lyric of, ‘death take your fiddle / play a song for me / and I will sing along’ could easily be lifted from a 1920s blues standard and Pierce evokes the sound of a gnarled old man, eking out the last strains of life to record one final song.
Yet at other times Pierce seems happy to just have fun. Baby I’m Just a Fool is the album’s obligatory long song, clocking in at seven minutes, which rolls along with a pleasant melody line and some lovely violins while Yeah Yeah sounds like a pastiche of Subterranean Homesick Blues sung by the Kings of Leon. Anyone who can move between such disparate songs without losing control is clearly a master bandleader.
And this is how the album runs throughout, switching between the songs of a man reflecting on the fragility of life and then appreciating the simple fact he is still alive and deciding to enjoy every moment. Even the title can be read as either an indication of what inspired the songs or a pun on musical keys.
An album that makes you think about the preciousness of life while bringing a smile to your face is clearly something special. Pierce has shown, through the many incarnations of Spiritualized, it is he who is their life force. Let’s be thankful he’s still around to conjure up such sublime music. |
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