Spiritualized

Who knows what band Jason "J Spaceman" Pierce is bringing this time out in order to muster up his Spiritualized revival meeting? After famously firing the core group of players who assisted in the creation of 1997's magnificent Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space and its subsequent live fantasias (documented on Royal Albert Hall, one of the finest rock concert albums of the post-classic rock era), he's apparently at it again. The orchestral horns that accompanied last December's live unveiling of Let It Come Down are rumored to have been scrapped, and Spiritualized is again a lean, mean drone-psychedelic machine.

Regardless of who and how many are playing around him, Pierce's best ensembles work in a shamanist fashion, escorting the attendees through grandiose up-river voyages into the heart of sonic darkness and back again. (At worst, they're a loud Low, with Spectorian approximations of T. Rex hooks.) If comparisons are needed, it's in the Pink Floyd-meets-Sonic Youth airs, but one needn't have a pretentious bone to enjoy what Pierce wants to lay down. Cut through the bullshit accoutrements, and "Medication," "Stop Your Crying," "Come Together," and a half-dozen others sound like majestic space-pop songs, without the new wave tendencies. That said, boredom will factor in only if your THC level is low, so smoke 'em if you got 'em.