Amazing Grace
- Spiritualized
- Band Name: Spiritualized
- Record Label: Sanctuary / Spaceman
- Release Date: Sep 9, 2003
- Critic Score
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91Amazing Grace is at peak moments an amazingly graceful representation of MC5/Stooges skid marks on a psychedelic superhighway. [Oct 2003, p.112]
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90Another Spiritualized album. Another great Spiritualized album. [Oct 2003, p.120]
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90Indolent, perturbed and volatile, Amazing Grace finds Pierce checking his wide-screen Spectorian visions at the studio door; he has opted, instead, for a coarse mix of electrified Southern gospel and somnabulent balladeering that has produced the most urgent Spiritualized album since Electric Mainline.
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Review 1: He may well be repeating himself... but Spiritualized are still a force. Review 2: With Amazing Grace, Pierce has achieved a perfect balance between his traditional blues-rock leanings and his appetite for studio excess. [Score is an average of both reviews: 79 and 90]
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[Pierce is] not averse to thrash; songs like "Never Going Back" find him crawling around in broken glass like Iggy, a supplicant for love. [12 Sep 2003, p.153]
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Amazing Grace is loud, dirty, sloppy, and crude. But it rocks hard. [#5, p.103]
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80The sound is taut and tough, with a much more spontaneous sound than previous efforts. [#23, p. 101]
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80There is absolutely no doubt that this is an important album.
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80More difficult when played initially, you will find yourself becoming immersed in it, a generous reward for your initial endeavours.
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80For every song that reacts against the last album, another chimes perfectly with its mood of epic redemption. [Sep 2003, p.101]
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80Amazing Grace holds its place in the ever-evolving sound of one of the most momentous bands of the past decade. [Oct 2003, p.86]
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Pierce's organic approach on Grace makes the album feel exquisitely intimate, personable and warm. [Oct 2003, p.138]
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80Even in the current climate, they sound unique.
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While the songs aren't that different from "classic" Spiritualized, the method in which they were recorded presents a whole new set of sonic possibilities.
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78Easily the least indulgent of the releases for the group thus far.
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70It is a Spiritualized album in every sense of the word: bombastic, beautiful, energized, dynamic, and for some damn reason, just a little emotionless.
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62Even in its most inspired moments, Amazing Grace lacks the fiery intensity of any of Pierce's previous outings.
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60Much of 'Amazing Grace' is the tired evidence of a man rehashing the same ideas - rather than sounds and movements - like a robotic, assembly line Andy Warhol.
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Amazing Grace is far from a bad album, but it's not an especially compelling one, either.
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At its best, Amazing Grace® finds Pierce and his many supporting players piecing their disparate moods and sounds into moments of catharsis only Spiritualized could create. But too often, those ingredients are doled out separately, as the album jerks through jarringly integrated fragments that should have run together seamlessly.
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60It may still sound beautiful, but too often Amazing Grace comes off as mere formula.
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50Pierce seems to have lost the magic that he once seemed in total command of.
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50The elements of free-jazz, mopey techno, and hypnotic riff rock find familiar combinations as Pierce's peace, love, and drugs philosophy takes on a perfunctory turn.
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A return to form, though, doesn't imply a return to greatness.
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40The mood is too inconsistent to connect. [Oct 2003, p.127]
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40An orgy of harmonica, squalling guitar, plodding ballads and ill-fitting minimalist trousers. What on earth is going on? [Oct 2003, p.113]
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The Bible talk and the vintage-guitar distortion sound so rote it's hard to imagine Pierce is baring his soul rather than just plumbing the depths of his record collection.
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10This is drivel inflated to whole new levels of bombast. [#235, p.72]
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 10 out of 14
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Mixed: 1 out of 14
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Negative: 3 out of 14
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10
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10
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