Pitchfork

In the 1980s, Jason Pierce distilled Dylan's methadone strumming, Roky Erickson's psychedelic circular breathing and LaMonte Young's numbing minimalism, and sold the delirious result to us as Spacemen 3. In the 1990s, he continued his tasteful pilfering as the figurehead of Spiritualized-- on Pure Phase, he defined blissed-out noise-pop; on Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space, he lifted murky hedonism from Jim Dickinson and voodoo rites from Dr. John (who even guested on the record), building towers of song on a 50-piece orchestral foundation. At its peak stood a full gospel choir, bellowing heartache and redemption.

This decade hasn't been quite as kind. 2001's Let It Come Down, the ridiculously anticipated follow-up to Ladies and Gentlemen which Pierce spent four years crafting, was at times musically and lyrically powerful, but rarely both at once. And Pierce's decision to double the size of the Spiritualized Philharmonic failed to up the impact of his by-then-familiar post-breakup moaning, religious conviction, and continuing struggles with drug addiction. Now, in 2003, it seems clear-- even to Pierce-- that a change is necessary, and with Amazing Grace, he heads back to that motherly womb of rock 'n' roll: the garage.

Unfortunately, there are problems from the beginning: As Pierce's voice bleats through blaring feedback on the opening track, "This Little Life of Mine", there's an unfillable void in his recklessly delivered lyrics where the song's emotional core should lie. His reconstituted band blazes, led by the bonfire-leads of guitarist Doggen (on loan from Brain Donor), but they also lurch in an almost sluggish manner that, push and pull as they might, never actually gets the lead out.

There are highlights: "She Kissed Me (It Felt Like a Hit)" (it owes to the similarly titled Spector-produced Crystals song in name only) is cut from the same patch of denim and black leather as "This Little Life of Mine", but more convincingly evokes the sneering garage aesthetic of The Troggs and early Kinks; "Cheapster", burning through a variation on "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream", brandishes switchblade-sharp chops; and "Never Goin' Back" proves Spiritualized can nail The Stooges shtick as well as any of the usurping mainstream garage rockers-- but no better. Here, he replicates the bottled, melting scowl of Iggy circa the primordial Funhouse, but his imitation, like the kids he schools, is stripped of the necessary blood/cum combo needed to carry the shot through to the heart.

Of course, rock was never what Pierce did best: it's the strung-out ballads and slow, unfurling of studio sounds that's always carried his wasted messages to beatific, almost narcotic effect-- as such, "Hold On" and "Lord Let It Rain on Me" serve as the linchpins of this record. For its entire opening flourish, the former tames itself into a soft strum as Pierce implores you to "hold on to those you hold dear." It's yet another demonstration of his ability to transcend limp Hallmark maxims through sheer will and conviction: he emotes no irony or bitterness, transforming simple truisms and cliches into heartbreaking revelations, much like Wayne Coyne observing that "the sun don't go down" in "Do You Realize??" And despite that the new has worn off this technique somewhat in the 20+ years Pierce has relied on it, in this moment it proves as effective as ever.

Amazing Grace also manages some mildly interesting jazz flourishes. "Rated X" does about a minute's worth of Miles Davis' "He Loved Him Madly" before Pierce's weightless astronaut murmuring sends the song into the beckoning orchestral stratosphere, and "The Power and the Glory" features the record's most forward-looking moment, as it builds to a massive, cacophonous swell, aided by a horn section that puts British improv legends Kenny Wheeler and Evan Parker in front of their largest audience yet.

After that intriguing instrumental fury, however, Pierce marches his poor, abused gospel choir back into place with the solemn tom thuds and plaintive guitar strum of "Lord Let It Rain on Me." Pieced together from at least four other Spiritualized songs, Pierce doles out more of his redemptive raindrops while "looking down the barrel of a gun," before finally unleashing another predictably bombastic endorphin downpour. Here, as with tracks like the banal "The Ballad of Richie Lee" and the repetitive, melodramatic closing lullaby "Lay It Down Easy", Pierce finally wears out his welcome, having utterly exhausted the possibilities of what can be accomplished within the limited constraints he's set for himself.

Pierce's ability to convey pain-- much like the recovering addict's ability to feel pleasure-- is all but lost among clusters of burnt-out receptors. Even in its most inspired moments, Amazing Grace lacks the fiery intensity of any of Pierce's previous outings (including Let It Come Down). Now, fervently praying to channel the uplift of true gospel and the Gnostic moments of the Nuggets era, J Spacemen is left, for the first time, sobbing at the pearly gates.