FP17542
Release Date: 22nd October 2021
"‘Let It Come Down’ begins with the almost feel-good, chill-out rock stomper ‘On Fire’. “Let heaven flow into your soul” Pierce and his hundred-strong orchestra pleads us. Already it’s apparent that Spiritualized have decided to follow-up one of the best records of the 90’s with an album that treads similar ground. Almost immediately, we are transformed into the downbeat, string-fuelled mood that dominated ‘Ladies and Gentlemen…’ when the opening bars of ‘Out Of Sight’ come across us. “Out of sight is always out of mind”. Hugely orchestrated, and boosted by the blistering surge of brass takes this track onto a different level altogether just when you think it’s impossible for it to go any higher. The opening two-minutes of ‘Don’t Just Do Something’ recalls ‘Home Of The Brave’, but is transformed into one of the standout tracks on the record in a genius moment of transformation from the drone to a peaceful string-laden classic. Then to finish off Pierce returns with the lasting premonition “I’m going to drown before my ship comes in” and its at this point where you can see that the 4 years its took to record and mix this record was 4 years very well spent.
If ‘Don’t Just Do Something’ brought back memories of ‘Home Of The Brave’ then there is no doubting that the following track, the colossal ‘The Twelve Steps’ bears a good resemblance to the rock ‘n’ roll spirit of ‘Electricity’. The title suggests a time where Pierce was in rehab, yet the lyrics suggest that it is infact a rather sly dig at the clinics “I aint to to where I’m going to by hanging round with people like you” and in particular “Twenty eight days for 13 grand, I’d better go and get myself an insurance plan”.
After the fast and furious revolution which protested against such rehab clinics, ‘The Straight And Narrow’ almost suggests that in the end, they are some what essential. “The trouble with the straight and narrow is its so thin I keep sliding off to the side,” Pierce cries in one of the more melodic tunes on ‘Let It Come Down’. Beautiful. We then pass through the catchy, parodic ‘Do It All Over Again’ and the self-pitying ‘I Didn’t Mean To Hurt You’ to reach familiar ground, in the single ‘Stop Your Crying’. Heavily strung and irresistibly blissful ‘Stop Your Crying’ is perhaps the closest you’ll get to the perfect love song of the 21st Century. “Nothing hurts you like the pain of someone you love, there aint nothing you can gain that prepares you in love.”Lyrically beautiful and backed with the huge orchestral power, it’s the sound of losing a loved one. By far the most emotional song on the album and perhaps of the bands career, it’s a song Pierce needed to write. And he couldn’t have done it any better. When the chorus returns for one final rendition it reaches a point where the strings swirl and the gospel bellows out in a moment which would make even the coldest of person to melt and float away into an altogether different world."