I Would Walk The Galaxies For You

Spiritualized's new album, Everything Was Beautiful, as taken up residence on my turntable, a forty four minute, seven song companion piece to 2018's And Nothing Hurt. The songs for this album were recorded at the same time as the ones that make up And Nothing Hurt and could have been packaged as a double but I think breaking the songs into two sets across two albums released four years apart, has worked best, each record having the time and space to reveal itself. They're clearly related works- the two titles are supposed to run together, Everything Was Beautiful And Nothing Hurt (taken from Kurt Vonnegut) but they stand alone too. Pain runs through both, emotional and physical, and at time his singing sounds like one long exercise in heartache- but there's masses of beauty in them too. 

Reverting to his J Spaceman name Jason has delved into his own back catalogue, referencing the packing of 1997's Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space, with more medication styled art on the sleeve and he's dug deep into his usual influences for the songs too- there's Stooges style rockers, blues guitar riffs, gospel choirs, those wasted, enervated vocals, fuzz guitars and free jazz saxophone, sweet calm and sudden noise, with the mono- like production that balances the huge number of instruments. If he's repeating himself (and I think Spiritualized is an exercise in repeating himself, repetition and refinement are what he does) he's doing it very well. It's got depth and a genuine emotional heft in among the mantras in the lyrics and the sounds. This one opens it, and starts out as Ladies And Gentlemen... did, the album's title spoken by a whispered female voice...

Always Together With You