Spiritualized – Everything Was Beautiful There are plenty of comparisons to be made between Jason Pierce’s last album 2018’s And Nothing Hurt and this year’s Everything Was Beautiful , beyond just the reverse Vonnegut quote. For one thing, And Nothing sounded distinctly simple when it was released, owing little to its sweeping, almost psychedelic predecessor, Sweet Heart Sweet Light . That made sense, when And Nothing came out, Pierce billed it as his final album and although it didn’t present the kind of finality many Spiritualized fans were looking for, it was still a relatively strong effort. As with the context given by the completion of the quote, Everything Was Beautiful also recontextualized And Nothing ’s almost elementary approach to the Spiritualized sound. That album now sounds like a dry run, providing the kernels for the ideas that would form later on, instead of just a missed opportunity. Everything Was Beautiful works as a grand statement, much in the same way the ...
a subjective look at objective sounds