All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

The Onion (A.V. Club)

Songs In A&E is Pierce's best work since "Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space"--easily his most personal.

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Tiny Mix Tapes

Although it remains, at its foundation, an exploration of themes that Pierce has long explored, Songs In A&E becomes more than the sum of its historical variants by directly placing emotional vulnerability at its focal point.

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musicOMH.com

Some may listen to Songs From A&E and dub Jason Pierce a one-trick pony. Which may be true, but what a trick he's managed to perfect.

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No Ripcord

I’m gonna go way out on a limb and say that this is their best album yet.

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Lost At Sea

Spiritualized have always possessed an impressive grandeur, but on this album it is grandeur with a purpose--Songs in A&E is the sound of healing.

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Pitchfork

Songs in A&E is certainly Spiritualized's best work in 10 years.

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Entertainment Weekly

Just when you think he's taken a turn for the cliche, even an allusion to drug use--"I've got a hurricane in my veins," he sings on 'Soul on Fire'--crescendos ino a string-laden little gem. [13 June 2008, p.70]

Dusted Magazine

The album may not set the world on fire like "Ladies and Gentlemen," but it stands as the best Spiritualized album since that milestone, and a worthy successor.

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All Music Guide

Newly focused energy, willfully restrained arrangements, and taut compositions give the set a sheer emotional power that no Spiritualized recording has ever displayed before, making it, quite possibly, their finest outing yet.

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NOW Magazine

Spiritualized always had that out-of-body, walk-toward-the-light quality; Pierce just seems to be doing it better now than on the last two albums.

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Under The Radar

The songs are punctuated with numbered “Harmony” pieces, small intermissions that, along with the orchestration on the songs themselves, reveal Pierce’s growing skill as an arranger. [Summer 2008]

Slant Magazine

It runs a little long, and it doesn't break much new thematic ground, but the album's great depth of feeling and its sure-footed execution outshine such minor problems.

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The Guardian

Delayed and coloured by a near-fatal bout of double pneu-monia, it is his most moving record since 1997's "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space."

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Spin

Songs in A&E, finds an eerie strength in quietude and mortality.

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The Wire

That this is Spiritualized's most vital and compelling set for a decade suggests that his muse has been galvinised by his near death experience. [May 2008, p.61]

New Musical Express

In sick times, with extreme politics on the rise and a fright-wigged bad Tory joke in charge of London, this is an album you can retreat to for succour.

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Billboard

Pierce ties the dark to the light with poetic folk ballads like closing lullaby "Goodnight Goodnight," making A&E a strange and pleasing concoction of old and new.

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Uncut

Songs In A&E swells with tender, cautious optimism.

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Hot Press

A&E isn’t a reinvention for Spiritualized, but while that might be a disappointment for some, the comforting embrace of familiarity shouldn’t be underrated.

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Los Angeles Times

Mostly, though, this is music from someone who's been there and back, and now truly knows he prefers things here.

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PopMatters

Overall, Songs in A & E merges the familiar, sometimes disparate elements of past Spiritualized recordings, yet rarely comes across as a stale or uninspired career conclusion--kely due to the intense emotion that Spaceman puts into just about everything on here.

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Hartford Courant

Pierce hasn't totally rejected quick tempos and piled-high productions, but in the context of the album, the livelier songs are actually the least effective.

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Village Voice

The result ebbs and flows.

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Alternative Press

It's an honest record, a welcome return and a confident entry in the Spiritualized canon. [July 2008, p.156]

Blender

A&E is generally more subdued, but, like Pierce’s earlier work, it’s best at its most theatrical.

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Drowned In Sound

Truth and parody meshed together in an altogether confusing and ill-conceived manner.

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Q Magazine

There's nothing wrong with the songs that make up its second act, save that each is as woozy, wistful and gossamer-fragile as the next. [June 2008, p.140]

cokemachineglow

Songs in A&E retains all of the weight of its self-imposed seriousness, its capital A artistic gravitas, but unfortunately leaves the uplift of invention to the memory of Spiritualized albums it so readily evokes.

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Mojo

Sadly A&E neither draws on personal crisis or the intimacy of "Acoustic Mainlines" [June 2008, p.106]

Dot Music

The lumbering, ponderous nature of both music and vocals elsewhere makes you wonder if much of Songs In A&E wasn't actually recorded in hospital.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 20 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

[Anonymous] gave it a9:
Great album, one of their best.

Viks gave it a10:
Best album of the year. That's sure!

Dee S gave it an8:
I'm really disappointed with Spiritualized fans this time around. I just can't get into this one like some of their best. Personally, Let it Come Down is their (his- Jason's) best and time will show that. This time around, some of the tracks are really good, most fall later in the album, but there is a self-conscious aspect to the songwriting (i.e. Yeah Yeah) that is a little heavy to bear upon subsequent listens. Just because J's music is better than a lot of the music being produced today doesn't mean that this deserves a 10. It doesn't, and I think even Mr. Spaceman himself can acknowledge that. His work with Harmony Korine on Mister Lonely is definitely worth a listen/viewing.

Jon L gave it a9:
Even if it's a tad fragmented, it's still a triumphant blast out of the darkness from Pierce, and it's familiar without feeling dull. Way better than Amazing Grace.

Luke gave it a9:
Best album of the year so far.

Christian P. gave it a9:
Feels more focused that earlier albums.

S K. gave it a10:
I don't know how to explain it but from the first listen that album brought tears to my eyes.

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