Spiritualized and Fat Possum Records have announced the reissue of the band’s 2003 classic “Amazing Grace”. The album will be released on January 19th as part of the second volume of “The Spaceman Reissue Program: Curated by J Spaceman”. Overlooked at the time, “Amazing Grace” is possibly the heaviest and most intimate Spiritualized record of all. A wild collection of blazing garage rock songs and beautifully tender, sometimes devastatingly sad, ballads. They are songs that reach for help from a broken place, ragged and lonely, in love with a world hanging by a thread. The feeling of the gospel standard that inspired the title – “through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come” – hangs like a shadow over the whole record, and J Spaceman’s heart and soul lies very close to the microphone.
Remastered for vinyl in London by engineer Matt Colton, the 180 gram album features a gatefold jacket designed by Mark Farrow. It will be available in both a standard black vinyl pressing and limited edition dove grey vinyl.
Absolute nihilism bleeds through the opening song “This Little Life of Mine”: “This little life of mine / I’m gonna let it slide / I’m gonna let it burn / I’m getting sick of trying.” In “The Ballad of Richie Lee”, a lament to the late Acetone singer, we have maybe the most brutally sad moment of the entire Spiritualized catalogue “He’s got his name on a rock again / And this time it’s the last”.
Then, out of the blackest nights of the soul, beautiful hymns appear, odes to falling in love and staying in love. Songs like “Hold On”, “Oh Baby” and “Rated X” where we “Put your hand in my hand and maybe we’ll forget / That life had even started before the day we met.”
Accompanying this announcement are a bevy of official videos, including visuals for “Cheapster,” “She Kissed Me (It Felt Like a Hit),” and the previously-unreleased “Rated X” video. In addition to the reissue, Spiritualized will tour the East Coast of the USA throughout November, ahead of December shows supporting Queens of the Stone Age.
The recording of “Amazing Grace” was fast and experimental, executed in three weeks at Rockfield Studios in Wales. Spaceman would present the band with an idea for each song on the day of recording, and they would experiment until it felt right. The core musicians, John Coxon, Tony Foster and Tim Lewis were players au fait with the abstract and experimental, finding the sweet spots where The Stooges meet Arvo Part, where Patsy Cline meets 13th Floor Elevators and Aretha Franklin is down with Miles Davis’ Get Up With It. The result of this method is a polar opposite to the symphonic grandeur of its predecessor “Let It Come Down” but more powerful in its emotional impact.
The first stage of The Spaceman Reissue Program included the release of “Lazer Guided Melodies” (1992), “Pure Phase” (1995), “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space” (1997) and “Let It Come Down” (2001) over the course of 2021. Spiritualized also released their latest new record, “Everything Was Beautiful“, in 2022 to great acclaim.
20th anniversary edition of “Amazing Grace” January 19th, 2024
The Fat Angel Sings 