Spiritualized, Albert Hall - review - Music - Arts

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Last night ought to have been an evening of consolidation: there's no new album on the horizon; no album at all since 2008 and a venue that was slightly too big for their increasingly selective following.

Instead, Pierce took, yes, the hard way. Sitting on a rickety stool, sunglasses glued to his face, taciturn to the point of awkwardness and, as ever, facing his band rather than the audience (and seemingly oblivious to the "turn around" chants), Pierce, plus band, female choir, string section and brass section unveiled the whole seventh Spiritualized album - still untitled and not due until next year - and finished their two- hour set with a tentative dip into the back catalogue.

Such hubris has toppled many a band but I've not seen Spiritualized more engaged or full of musical joy. They've swapped the garage bellowing of recent years for a powder keg of pop, gospel, punk and asexual healing.

The lavish setting (not a luxury extended to their corner shop backdrops) and extended personnel illuminated the adventurous beauty of the
11-minute Hey Jane, while the closing Dio C'é (God Exists) was a fireball of multi-voiced, chorus-heavy uplift and surely the gateway to Spiritualized shedding their years of stagnation.

Not for nothing did they leave us with a kitchen-sink-and-all romp through Oh Happy Day...

Spiritualized
Royal Albert Hall
Kensington Gore, SW7 2AP