Let It Come Down

1	On Fire 4:01
2	Do It All Over Again 3:48
3	Don't Just Do Something 6:53
4	Out of Sight 5:37
5	The Twelve Steps 6:11
6	The Straight and the Narrow 4:43
7	I Didn't Mean to Hurt You 5:11
8	Stop Your Crying 5:13
9	Anything More 5:16
10	Won't Get to Heaven (the State I'm In) 5:35
11	Lord Can You Hear Me 10:33

Barnes & Noble

Back in the earliest days of rock 'n' roll, people like Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard struggled with an internal battle between total sensual pleasure and thoughts of the Man Upstairs -- a tug-of-war that's captured in stunning detail on the long-awaited return of Spiritualized. Leader Jason Pierce has long done his best to harness the spiritual cleansing aspects of sacred music and fuse them with the inner-mind explorations of pure psychedelia, and he's never been more successful than on Let It Come Down, Spiritualized's fourth studio album. With gospel choirs, dizzyingly flanged drums and guitars, and swelling strings, the disc's intensity matches Pierce's unashamed, unreconstructed hedonism, which he flaunts on the smirking, fuzztone-drenched garage-rocker "The Twelve Steps," where he challenges prohibitionists with lines like "The only time I'm drug and drink free is when I get my drugs and drink for free." But while there's certainly plenty of meaning to dig out from behind the wall of sound, it's just as sensually pleasing to bask in the spangled textures emanating from the tinkling pianos and snarling guitars of "On Fire" and "Just Do Something" and the lush percussion of "Do It All Over Again." The centerpiece, a ten-minute exploration called "You Won't Get to Heaven," brings together all of the above, with swelling orchestration that'd do Bacharach proud. There's almost too much going on here to absorb during one pass-through, but like an overflowing smorgasbord, it's impossible to resist diving right in. David Sprague

All Music Guide

Jason Pierce has never shied away from changes in pursuit of his artistic goals. He traded Spacemen 3's white-hot intensity for the gentler ebb and flow of Spiritualized, and took things a step further by firing the rest of the band after their greatest success, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space. Let It Come Down is another step in Pierce's difficult, single-minded creative path. To craft the album's epic sound, Pierce sang the melodies into a Dictaphone, translated them to piano, and then transposed them into orchestral arrangements. This painstaking process results in an album that is equal parts intimate confessions and ambitious soundscapes, yet, despite the lineup changes and its lengthy inception, Let It Come Down doesn't sound radically different from Spiritualized's previous albums, proving for once and all that Pierce is Spiritualized and Spiritualized is Pierce. Instead, it feels like a natural progression from the densely orchestrated space rock of the first three Spiritualized albums, especially on the bleak, bluesy "Out of Sight" and the plaintive "Don't Just Do Something." Sweeping, stratospheric string and brass sections dominate the album, with over 100 musicians surrounding Pierce's frail, desolate vocals on some songs. Indeed, the lushness of the arrangements sometimes overpowers the album's relatively straightforward songwriting, particularly on tracks like "Anything More." While country and gospel influences bring the beautiful "Do It All Over Again" and "Won't Get to Heaven (The State I'm In)" back down to earth, Let It Come Down's elaborate sound doesn't always make its songs particularly accessible. When Pierce dares to keep things relatively simple, as on the insistent, yearning "I Didn't Mean to Hurt You" and the finale, "Lord Can You Hear Me," the emotional impact is stunning; the rockers "On Fire" and "The Twelve Steps" also cut the album's scope down to size in a direct, gripping way. Let It Come Down is another masterfully made Spiritualized album, but its very ambitions sometimes overwhelm it. Heather Phares

NME

Let It Come Down is another towering achievement -- both musically and emotionally…. Let It Come Down isn't the sound of a band touched by genius, it's the sound of one born with it. This is music as it's meant to be: raw, colossal and awe-inspiring. No wonder everything else just pales in comparison. James Oldham

Blender

Let It Come Down brings Pierce’s preoccupation with panoramic emotional and chemical excess to startling, transcendent climax. April Long