Everything Was Beautiful
by Spiritualized
Metascore
83

Universal acclaim - based on 24 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 23 out of 24
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 24
  3. Negative: 0 out of 24
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  1. Under The Radar
    Apr 29, 2022
    90
    There is immensely evident craftsmanship that runs through the album, and a newly revitalized soul that, for all its beauty, And Nothing Hurt missed. If it turns out that Everything Was Beautiful is the last Spiritualized project we ever get, it is an unexpected gift that lives up to the best of Jason Pierce’s storied career.
  2. Clash Music
    Apr 26, 2022
    90
    A grand, cinematic record, it seems to burst past the edges of the widescreen limitations it utilises. Terrific space rock that feels utterly untethered from its sources, ‘Everything Was Beautiful’ easily ranks amongst Spiritualized’s finest achievements.
  3. AllMusic
    Apr 22, 2022
    90
    Everything Was Beautiful is delirious and exciting, a perfect distilment of the best parts of the band's various phases that feels reinvigorated and new.
  5. The Line of Best Fit
    Apr 21, 2022
    90
    Everything Was Beautiful shows Spiritualized accessing yet another artistic plateau, forging an exemplary hybridization of unshakeable songs and sublimely assembled music.
  6. Classic Rock Magazine
    Mar 8, 2022
    90
    [J Spaceman's] rare communications (this is just his second album in a decade) are generally breathtaking events, and Everything Was Beautiful is no different. [Mar 2022, p.82]
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  7. Uncut
    Mar 8, 2022
    90
    In many ways, it’s everything you could want in a Spiritualized album. [Mar 2022, p.22]
  8. Paste Magazine
    Apr 20, 2022
    85
    Everything Was Beautiful marks another career-best in Spiritualized’s euphoric discography.
  9. Dusted Magazine
    Aug 11, 2022
    80
    Everything Was Beautiful isn’t some showy highlight reel, though; it’s an example of how keenly Pierce has honed his inner space rock and how much room it still has left to soar.
  10. Spin
    Apr 27, 2022
    80
    The album is curated like a museum, preserving the best of their sound while polishing the crucial details. Spaceman continues to fine-tune his astral pop sound with shocking consistency throughout the familiar but delightfully hypnotic space rock album.
  11. Sputnikmusic
    Apr 25, 2022
    80
    Overall, the journey Everything Was Beautiful creates is definitely more entrancing and vivid than And Nothing Hurt.
  12. No Ripcord
    Apr 25, 2022
    80
    Pierce commits to an intricately layered masterwork that brims with beauty at every turn. He has come close to writing a Motown-inspired ballad-like Let it Bleed (For Iggy) before, but here, in typically unorthodox fashion, Pierce nails down that aesthetic while serving up Britpop grandeur this side of Blur’s The Universal.
  13. The Observer (UK)
    Apr 25, 2022
    80
    This ninth outing is Pierce’s most assured in some time, doling out extra helpings of heady patisserie.
  14. The Telegraph (UK)
    Apr 22, 2022
    80
    You don’t need to be in an altered state to become overwhelmed by his mastery of controlled cacophony. It is a pleasure to report that everything is still beautiful in Pierce’s strange sonic world.
  15. Exclaim
    Apr 21, 2022
    80
    Spiritualized have delivered yet another great project with Everything Is Beautiful, an incredible mix of genres bringing forth truly impressive instrumentals with compelling lyrics.
  16. New Musical Express (NME)
    Apr 20, 2022
    80
    The result is a densely orchestrated record that is as solid as it is sprawling.
  17. Glide Magazine
    Mar 8, 2022
    80
    Everything Was Beautiful pulls heavily from throughout the Spiritualized catalog, whether it be the Ladies and Gentlemen-era “Best Thing You Ever Had”, the soft, sentimentality of Pierce’s mid-career work on “Crazy” or the lush balance of And Nothing. All those influences, and their tonal similarities to his last album, never distract or take away from the conceptual success of Everything Was Beautiful.
  18. The Quietus
    Mar 8, 2022
    80
    The songs have all benefitted from these unexpected levels of time and space to add additional material and occasional re-writing. Pulling from the twin pressures of studio time and commercial schedule combined to give the songs a sense of gentle completeness.
  19. Mojo
    Mar 8, 2022
    80
    Much of Everything Was Beautiful has a vital, thundering pulse. ... Utterly beautiful, as advertised. [Mar 2022, p.80]
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  20. Beats Per Minute
    Apr 27, 2022
    78
    Nothing here quite reaches the fizzy highs of something like “Come Together” or “Hey Jane”, and he can’t quite recapture the slow, sad, and syrupy balladry of past tracks like “Broken Heart”. But he can still kick up quite a storm when he wants to, and though perhaps a bit too streamlined for some fans, this is another fine album in Pierce’s and Spiritualized’s repertoire.
  21. Pitchfork
    Apr 22, 2022
    78
    You could take issue with Spiritualized for sticking so closely to the blueprint they inaugurated more than 30 years ago. But the band always felt built for repetition and refinement, a cosmic home for Jason Pierce to grow comfortably old, away from an ever-changing musical world.
  22. DIY Magazine
    Apr 20, 2022
    70
    There’s just enough on ‘Everything…’ to ingratiate fans both new and old.
  23. musicOMH.com
    Apr 20, 2022
    70
    If nothing on Everything Was Beautiful feels truly essential to anyone with the Spiritualized back catalogue, it’s also a glowing example of their aesthetic.
  24. PopMatters
    Mar 11, 2022
    70
    This album is a grand balancing act of making everything heard and felt and of letting all these disparate instruments come to the fore without overwhelming. It’s the ultimate task of expression. Throughout it all, Spaceman’s beautifully weathered voice is the one calming element that stays with us.

Awards & Rankings

80
#80 Best Album of 2022

User Reviews

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User Score
6.6

Generally favorable reviews- based on 12 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 12
  3. Negative: 2 out of 12
  1. Muzmarinator
    Apr 27, 2022
    9
    While it might not be up there with his classics like Ladies and Gentlemen or Lazer Guided Melodies Jason Pearce has moulded an epic littleWhile it might not be up there with his classics like Ladies and Gentlemen or Lazer Guided Melodies Jason Pearce has moulded an epic little journey together with this latest offering which is his best in some time. There is a nice sonic ark to the album and keeping it a little more lean means it’s not padded out with second rate material. The production is also improved over the previous few, and we have a return to the symphonic moments he is so good at. That said, I do miss some of the minute intricate details that have sown his best albums together. This still feels like a group of songs, where his best albums feel like a singular piece of art.… Full Review »
  2. Angel_Sigh
    Apr 23, 2022
    6
    It really wouldn't take much for Jason to get seriously good reviews, clearly. If an album as(relative to his past work) uninspired as thisIt really wouldn't take much for Jason to get seriously good reviews, clearly. If an album as(relative to his past work) uninspired as this can get an average of 83 then imagine how crazy critics would go if he offered up a genuine indian summer of an album.
    Instead, we get a seven track album. Of those tracks two have been floating around online in live form for years, namely D Song and A Song, and are, respectively, pretty good and turgid. Another was made for a NASA compilation album, the album high-point Always Together With You(which to be fair has had a glorious multi-voice chorus added to its original slightly meandering, indecisive form). Two more have been available on Spotify for something like two months; Crazy, which is another of the dreadful, stripped-back country-soul ballads that Jason inexplicably thinks are his forte, and the second best track on the album, the excellent Lockdown Song.

    Which, for a fan, leaves just two tracks that haven't been heard.

    I have long since stopped hoping, never mind expecting, Spiritualized to reach the heights of their nineties output. This band has been the single most important musical inspiration of my life, I love them and rank a clutch of their songs as the greatest things ever recorded by humans. But at this point there is nothing melodically surprising, none of the church-like, pin-drop beauty of earlier songs, music that felt like it was made of the most delicate materials in the universe. There is none of the roiling, dark, focused rock and roll of electricity or Cop shoot cop, or the daring chaos of no god only religion. It's all so incredibly tame and pleasant. And some of it is very pleasant. But Spiritualized were never just pleasant.    … Full Review »
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