Sweet Heart Sweet Light is the kind of masterful, orchestral and, yes, spiritual rock ‘n’ roll statement that only could come from Jason Pierce... more

Sweet Heart Sweet Light is the kind of masterful, orchestral and, yes, spiritual rock ‘n’ roll statement that only could come from Jason Pierce’s Spiritualized. Sweet Heart hearkens back to the scope and ambition of the band’s landmark Ladies and Gentlmen, We Are Floating in Space album, but includes the blues and soul updates that have marked the band’s past few albums. “Hey Jane” grabs you by the neck and charges hard through eight minutes of Stones-as-krautrock, disintegrating halfway through and coming back for another haunting bout. But highlights abound through the album, such as “Little Girl,” one of the most effortlessly soulful things Pierce has put to tape, or the classic Britpop of “Get What You Deserve,” reminiscent of the times when Spiritualized rubbed shoulders with The Verve and Oasis. Pierce even throws Spacemen 3 fans a bone with “Heading for the Top,” a long and winding tour through Pierce’s religious and psychosexual fantasies as guitar fireworks explode around him. Redemption never felt so good as this.