Spiritualized

★★★ Let It Come Down

FAT POSSUM. LP

Spaceman reissue programme reaches the divisive final instalment.

At last available as a decent vinyl pressing, this unloved fourth Spiritualized album introduced Jason Pierce to his subsequent career’s chief bugbear: how to top 1997’s Ladies And Gentlemen,

We Are Floating In Space. It took him four agonising years to come up with his first effort, his original band having quit post-tour. Consequently, Pierce hired some 115 sessioneers to indulge his emerging passion for orchestral/choral overload (on three tracks, Low’s Mimi Parker), around a core combo partly nicked off Julian Cope, with their space-rock FX staunchly dialled down. Sniffy reviews suggested that the painstaking arrangements had spawned a sterile, monomaniacal sound. In hindsight that’s very harsh, because Let It

Come Down has fuzzy edges and miraculous moments aplenty, and a handful of outright classics, including exquisite addict’s anthem The Straight And The Narrow and the wondrous climactic gospel reading of Spacemen 3’s Lord Can You Hear Me. Drop the needle and enjoy.