Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space

Ok, _now_ I get it. Not sure why it took me so long. The Individual stood out as one of my favorites, as did No God, Only Religion. (Why are these the lowest played tracks on the album? They're great)

This has everything that I love in music: long song structures, fantastic production, multiple layers as well as just being odd. But this doesn't do anything for me. Often times it seemingly layering just do it without a care as to if it sounds good or not.
I can see how someone would love this and I can see how this would be a critics wet dream, waxing poetically about how brilliant this is and if you don't think so you're not cool or smart enough to get it.
There does come a point about halfway through where its clear that they are just rehashing the same thing repeatedly and it becomes exhausting.
2/5, would not purposely listen to again.

I listened to this album today as I ferried into Seattle for work during the sunrise. Really hit the spot.
I do wish this was an instrumental album as I find the vocals to be a bit jarring, but a nice listen nonetheless. 4/5

mood based album. I'm sure somedays this really hits the spot. Today was meh.

The packaging arrives as a prescription medication blister pack with the instruction “1 tablet 70 min” — an invitation to take the whole thing as a single immersive dose rather than a collection of songs. It’s either the most pretentious or most committed album concept of 1997 depending on your perspective, and the music inside takes that instruction seriously.
Jason Pierce builds something genuinely atmospheric here — space rock, gospel, drone, and orchestral ambition layered into a record that asks for complete surrender. The gospel influences are present but submerged in texture rather than front and center, which means they register as color rather than conviction. “Broken Heart” in particular creates such a complete atmosphere of stillness and calm that it becomes genuinely nap-inducing — and not entirely in a bad way. There’s a real distinction between music that puts you to sleep because it’s boring and music that puts you to sleep because your nervous system simply lets go. This is closer to the latter.
The problem is the same one that landed Lazer Guided Melodies at a 3 earlier in this project — the atmosphere is carefully constructed and occasionally beautiful, but it rarely asserts itself emotionally in a way that demands full attention and rewards it. Playing it in the background while working felt entirely appropriate, which is probably not what the prescription packaging intended. “Cop Shoot Cop,” the album’s seventeen-minute centerpiece, tested that patience further with a noise section that required editorial intervention — a reminder that commitment to atmosphere and commitment to the listener’s time are different things.
Two Spiritualized records, two honest threes. Well crafted, occasionally lovely, and best experienced horizontal with nowhere urgent to be.

I see why this is called space rock. It felt like it was flying by in the distance.

where’s the beef?

I was somewhat familiar with this seeing as it came out the year I graduated high school. There is a lot I like here and I feel this is one that would keep growing with more listens. Love that it popped up on this list to give me a fresh listen.

I knew about this album but never listened. I love a lot of it. Some of it, not so much. Some trimming could’ve gotten it a 5.

I’m at a 10.

Believe me, I’m just as surprised. When we last got our lead singer here, it was for Spacemen 3’s “Playing With Fire”, and that was an album that I gave a 2.5 bumped up to a 3. This is so, so far sonically removed from that album that I can hardly believe this album & its vision came from that band’s ashes, yet somehow, I also don’t find it extremely surprising. For as flawed as “Playing With Fire” is in terms of its execution, its strength comes in managing to find places for the soundscape to settle & find sweet spots for the listener’s ears, even in its most awkward moments. If you take their ability to find those sweet spots & use it on actually sweet, forceful & emotionally driven soundscapes that actually resemble traditional music, then you get an entire album of sweet spots, somehow rooted in the same ever-present chaos that bands like Can used on “Tago Mago”, along with the serenity they found on “Future Days”, yet blended with the shoegaze-y nature of “Playing With Fire”.

It also helps that there’s a loose narrative here around the perils of drug addiction, how it acts as a black hole on your life that gets everyone in its orbit sucked into your troubles & trauma, and how even when you try to make genuine efforts to clean up & get yourself out of it, that black hole will come back to haunt you. Practically every track here is either based around the enjoyment of taking drugs, trying to kick the habit, having to deal with the consequences of it on one’s relationship, finding the mental clarity to free yourself from it long enough to get the people you care about out of its orbit, or in the case of “Cop Shoot Cop…”, being dragged back into that hell, feeling the consequences of it, and being too emotionally drained to recognize there’s no hope left. This album enhances the little things that build up, puts them under a microscope, and makes them feel monumental because of it.

I’d love to gush more & more about the instrumentation here, the brilliance of the pacing & how it tries to emulate the adrenaline rush of shooting some heroin into your system along with the cooldowns that follow once the high wears off, the great punch to the bass & percussion that ties the whole thing’s energy together, the serenity of the orchestra & choir & the horror of the overdriven guitar & the distorted flutes… but it’s just an album that deserves to be heard to capture the full extent of the constant emotional whiplash present here. It is brilliantly performed, especially with headphones in, & for 1997, the mixing job is just remarkable. In closing, I’m just blown away. There are some nitpicks I’d have here & there throughout this album, but they barely affect the visceral nature of the production. It feels like listening to a grand tragedy play out in real time, and for as cheesy as it sounds, I feel like I’m floating in space after having heard it. It’s a 10.

This was a lovely discovery, exactly why I started this project in the first place! I thoroughly enjoyed every track, would definitely give another listen.

I saw them open for Radiohead in 1998 without having heard of them before. It didn’t do much for me then, so this is the first time actually listening to an album from them. But it still didn’t do anything for me, lol.

I like the concept and the vibes of the record but there are not many melodies to get hooked on. It's very much all over the place with the ambience. That said this is a good candidate for a "headphones" album.

lOok aT uS wE dOn'T juST mAKE mUSIc wE mAKe aRt

Man... When I hear "space rock" I'm looking forward to hearing something something like Hawkwind, F/i, or US Christmas. While this OCCASIONALLY works in a few similar elements, it is most assuredly NOT space rock. This is mostly pretty boring. Not only that but it's pretentious as hell, attempting to blend genres and incorporate instrumentation and vocals that just don't fit. This feels like an idea that was never fully fleshed out, and never properly edited down.

Lush instrumentals, vocals are a little hit or miss. But really enjoyed it overall

One of the brilliant accidents of Brit Pop is that record companies threw money at indie and alternative projects like this. Choirs, strings, Dr John would have been unthinkable in the 80’s or now. Even the cd packaging was groundbreaking.

Epic in scale and unified in concept. I’ve known this album since release but listening to it today I still find new facets.

Best way to describe this album is expansive. Everything here is huge. I really like this album. The softer elements are really complemented by the use of orchestral instrumentation. Cop Shoot Cop… is a behemoth. Favorite songs were the title track, Come Together, I Think I’m In Love, Electricity, Broken Heart, and Cop Shoot Cop…

Spiritualized is one of the major gifts from this project to me. This is the second album of theirs that I’ve listened to from the list. They were both super interesting. This one has some gorgeous tracks and some that are very challenging. I had never even heard of this band and now they rank very high. Cinematic. A feast for my ears. Apparently they are space rock? Far out.

З одного боку цей альбом дуже британський, тут дуже і дуже сильно відчувається вплив бітлз, а десь навіть критики й порівнюють його з сержантом; а в якомусь сенсі відчувається вплив взагалі всієї психоделічної музики, мені, наприклад в останній 17-хвилинній пісні Cop Shoot Cop чується Can. Ну і загалом це все весело, приколи з губною гармошкою сильно нагадують те що потім 20 разів переюзали кінг гізард. Але все ще зловив себе на відчуті, що саме пісень мені тут не вистачає, хоч форма і цікава. Альбом досить часто для мене переходить в якийсь фоновий режим.
З пісень найбільше подобаються Come Together і власне Cop Shoot Cop.