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Oct 04, 2023 By Mark Redfern Photography by William Seldon

Spiritualized (aka Jason Pierce and backing band) have announced a 20th anniversary vinyl reissue of their 2003 album Amazing Grace and shared a previously unreleased video for the album’s “Rated X,” as well as re-releasing videos for “Cheapster” and “She Kissed Me (It Felt Like a Hit).” Amazing Grace (20 Year Anniversary Edition) is due out January 19, 2024 via Fat Possum. Check out all the videos below, followed by the reissue’s tracklist and cover artwork, as well as the band’s upcoming tour dates.

Engineer Matt Colton remastered Amazing Grace for vinyl in London and the 180 gram album features lacquer cuts by Metropolis Mastering. The reissue will be presented in a gatefold jacket designed by Mark Farrow and will be available in a standard black vinyl pressing, but also a limited edition dove grey vinyl.

Amazing Grace embraced a more garage rock sound, when compared to the epic expaneses of Spiritualized’s previous two albums, 1997’s Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space and 2001’s Let It Come Down. It was recorded in just three weeks at Rockfield Studios in Wales, with the core band being Pierce, John Coxon, Tony Foster, and Tim Lewis.

“It was almost the opposite of what I’d been doing for the two albums that preceded it,” Pierce says in a new Q&A about the album that’s included in the press release. “We’d recorded Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space and Let it Come Down and we’d just pushed things out as far as they could go. And I wanted to make records that had a bit more space in them.”

The rest of the band hadn’t heard the songs or the demos until the morning each song was recorded, to keep things fresh.

“The idea of the songs was we weren’t gonna keep chasing them forever,” says Pierce. “Which is almost the opposite of what we’d been doing for the two previous albums.

“It was kind of weird listening back to it again because I think it’s successful and not in equal measures.

“The quieter songs are really special. Like ‘Oh Baby’ and ‘Rated X’; they still occupy this odd place in time. We really captured something that was quite unique on those recordings. Like, some things you can capture immediately and it’s not going to get much better than that.

“The heavier songs that you think will be easier to lay down fast, as good as they are on the record, actually ended up benefiting from having more time to develop.”

Even though the album is titled Amazing Grace, Spiritualized doesn’t actually cover the gospel standard on the record.

Pierce explains: “The top of ‘Hold On’ was part of a live recording of ‘Amazing Grace’ that we made. So, I guess there was some kind of rooting for this album in that song. We were touring America, and we were talking about how a lot of American music came from Irish and Scottish roots [‘Amazing Grace’ was written in Donegal in 1773] as well as everything else that went into that melting pot of American music. There was a time when we were playing with that song, but I guess it didn’t make it to the album. It didn’t seem necessary.”

Spiritualized released a new album, Everything Was Beautiful, in April 2022 via Fat Possum (stream it here). When the new album was announced, Spiritualized shared the song “Always Together With You,” which topped our Songs of the Week list. Then they shared its second single, “Crazy,” via a video for it. The album’s third single, “The Mainline Song,” was shared via a self-directed video and also topped our Songs of the Week list. When the album was released, album track “The A Song (Laid In Your Arms)” also landed at #1 on our Songs of the Week list. Then Spiritualized shared a live video for the album’s epic 10-minute closing track, “I’m Coming Home Again.”

Spiritualized’s previous album, And Nothing Hurt, came out in 2018 via Fat Possum (and Bella Union in the U.K.). It was our Album of the Week. Read our review of And Nothing Hurt.

Read our 2008 interview with Jason Pierce.

Amazing Grace (20 Year Anniversary Edition) Tracklist:

1. This Little Life of Mine
2. She Kissed Me (It Felt Like a Hit)
3. Hold On
4. Oh Baby
5. Never Goin’ Back
6. The Power and the Glory
7. Lord Let It Rain On Me
8. The Ballad of Richie Lee
9. Cheapster
10. Rated X
11. Lay It Down Slow

Spiritualized Tour Dates:

Mon. Nov. 6 - Jersey City, NJ @ White Eagle Hall
Tue. Nov. 7 - Buffalo, NY @ Babeville
Wed. Nov. 8 - Hudson, NY @ Basilica Hudson
Thu. Nov. 9 - Millvale, PA @ Mr. Smalls Theatre
Sat. Nov. 11 - Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
Sun. Nov. 12 - New York, NY @ Webster Hall
Tue. Dec. 5 - Phoenix, AZ @ Arizona Financial Theatre %
Wed. Dec. 6 - El Paso, TX @ Abraham Chavez Theatre %
Fri. Dec. 8 - Austin, TX @ Moody Center %
Sat. Dec. 9 - Houston, TX @ 713 Music Hall %
Sun. Dec. 10 - Irving, TX @ The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory %
Tue. Dec. 12 - Albuquerque, NM @ Revel Entertainment Center %
Fri. Dec. 15 - San Diego, CA @ Viejas Arena %
Sat. Dec. 16 - Inglewood, CA @ Kia Forum %

% supporting Queens of the Stone Age

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