It’s easy to be hard on Spiritualized, but I will try to refrain. The album is honestly not bad, but it just took some time to grow on me.
Whether you can connect to the album or not will depend on what mood you are in. Let’s say that one day, your girlfriend or boyfriend just broke up with you, your mom died, your brother got addicted to meth, and your dog ran away. Then, yes, you might just enjoy this album.
Essentially, Songs in A&E, like all Spiritualized albums, makes being depressed a whole lot easier.
However, Songs in A&E is surprisingly less soft than frontman Jason Pierce’s usual material. The songs sound more like sluggish blues ballads and somewhat break away from the usual shoe-gazing genre. It also should be noted that Pierce almost died from pneumonia in 2005, and many critics/fans claim he used his illness as a source for his work on Songs in A&E. He even sounds ill and weak in them.
Death is a major theme prevailing throughout the album, as is drug usage. Many might say that the artist is using the same drug references he has for the past 20 years of his career. That may be, but Spiritualized is good at doing so and can still pull it off. Even the weaker songs are interesting to listen to; every song is sprinkled with beautiful melodies and captivating instrumentals.
"Soul on Fire" is easily the top song of the album. It starts out slow and grows into a powerful anthem about heroin and freedom, "I got a hurricane inside my veins and I wanna’ stay forever." Other notable songs include "Sweet Talk" and "Sitting on Fire"
Both tracks are lyrically excellent and make me want to ignore the bad tracks on the album like the four minutes of "Death Take Your Fiddle," which is listening to someone on a respirator. Yeah, frickin’ annoying.
But as I mentioned, the more I listen to Songs in A&E, the more it grows on me, and I could see myself becoming attached to it further down the road. The band also got some mixed reviews from fans and critics.
A lot of hardcore Spiritualized fans seem to feel the music is becoming too repetitive. But if you hear the album after only knowing "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space," like myself, then you might enjoy the album more than the average fan.
