No fear the reaper

SPIRITUALIZED Songs in A&E Universal ****

The last few years have been tough ones for our beloved J Spaceman. While writing Spiritualized's first studio album in five years, Jason Pierce contracted life-threatening double pneumonia. After his girlfriend was offered grief counselling and he was shown pictures of his children in an effort to turn him from death's door, he recovered - shortly before his close friend Samantha Morton suffered a stroke.

it was by Morton's bedside that Pierce read the script for Mister Lonely by director Harmony Korine and rediscovered songs through writing its soundtrack. Dreamy interludes Harmonies 1-6 are Korine's namesake.

It's impossible not to listen to these songs of love, mortality and resilience without a nod to the spectre of Death hovering overhead - the terrifying rattle of a respirator on Death Take Your Fiddle makes for eerie listening. But Pierce seems to find Death familiar, and the songs sounds more like unburdening than navel-gazing. His weary but accepting voice is upfront, making it clear that the raucous arrangements of the past are secondary to an exploration of vulnerability ("Lately I've been holding back the fear just to keep it from coming true").

Gospel thickens the album - gentle (Sweet Talk), rebellious (Yeah Yeah) and joyous (Soul on Fire). The blues-laden tones of Amazing Grace have been tempered with a hint of folk and improved by the oaky flavour of lyrical maturity. Proof that Spiritualized have come a ways from the transcendental Ladies and Gentleman: it seems that these days, substance trumps substances and psychedelia is more cathartic than sprawling, demonstrated nicely in the escalating Baby I'm Just a Fool.

Songs in A&E could have been chaotic. But gorgeous moments of meandering give tracks space to unfold and become many- splendoured things. This is space exploration at its best. www.myspace.com/spiritualized

Download tracks:Sweet Talk, Baby I'm Just a Fool, Sitting on Fire