As the leader of classic psych acts like Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized, Jason Pierce is no stranger to making music in altered states. While Spiritualized’s seventh album “Sweet Heart Sweet Light” was made under a drug-induced haze, it was less pleasurably hedonistic as it was medically urgent. Recently diagnosed with long-term liver disease, Pierce recorded and produced the entire album under heavy treatment.
The involuntary medication of a notoriously druggy artist is just one of many contradictions found in “Sweet Heart.” In spite of the mental cloudiness that pervaded its creation, “Sweet Heart” is an incredibly lucid work. Even the album’s most outright expressions of confusion are challenged by their clean packages. The cover declares, “Huh?” in a design simple enough to be Zen, while the introduction of the same name sounds like a one-minute epiphany. In the midst of disorder, Pierce seems transcendent as ever.
But such transcendence cannot be taken at face value, as the album’s deceptively clearer moments are often met with destruction. The relatively glossy gospel of “Get What You Deserve” and “I Am What I Am” eventually crashes into instrumental disorder. Lead single “Hey Jane” follows suit, with a poppy start before collapsing into chaos in its first third. After reassembling itself, the track almost tauntingly repeats, “Hey Jane, when you gonna die?”
From here, the specter of death looms large over “Sweet Heart,” which is not as light as its title would lead one to believe. The theme of mortality makes itself known in the first line of following track titled “Little Girl,” saying “Sometimes I wish that I was dead / ‘cause only the living can feel the pain.”
Though the uplifting sing-a-longs for which Pierce is known are not absent, they sound like a man ready to die. Pierce drenches the album in his suffering, as its sunniest melodies are juxtaposed with lyrics of despair and resignation. Pierce takes listeners through the hell of his disease, repenting for the self-indulgence that brought him there in “Too Late” and “Life is a Problem.” The latter sonically recalls his classic “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space,” but it is dominated by the pain of regret, not the ecstasy of love.
Yet such rapturous production reveals a strange happiness in Pierce’s pain. He may have grown tired over the years, but his sweeping instrumentals and backing choir are as strong as ever. The optimistic setup of “Life is a Problem” almost celebrates Pierce’s surrender as sparkling chimes back the realization that he “Won’t get to heaven.” It’s a blissfully nihilistic climax for an album so cleanly chaotic, so sluggishly alive.
Musically, “Sweet Heart” is no different from Pierce’s previous Spiritualized albums. Nevertheless, his usual brand of bluesy psychedelia is met with a sense of growth unheard in his other works. It provides a heartbreakingly mature Kubler-Ross model for youth in which an aging rock star accepts – and perhaps even rejoices in – his impending mortality. Such tidy resolution makes Pierce seem incredibly strong in his declarations of weakness. Though he does not come out of “Sweet Heart” unscathed, Pierce seems to have found comfort in a struggle that defines the human condition. He may claim he is confused, but “Sweet Heart” leaves listeners none the wiser.
Sarah Fonder can be reached at [email protected].
