Everything Was Beautiful

There is something quietly defiant about Everything Was Beautiful. Not in volume or aggression, but in its insistence that grandeur, emotion and devotion to sound still matter. Released on 22 April 2022, Spiritualized’s ninth album feels less like a reinvention and more like a reaffirmation, one that draws from the band’s past while refusing to feel nostalgic.

Built from the same demo sessions as its predecessor, And Nothing Hurt, the album completes a thought that stretches back decades. Together, the titles form a line lifted from Slaughterhouse-Five, and that sense of duality runs through the record itself. It is both companion and counterpoint, familiar yet subtly reshaped.

Jason Pierce remains at the centre of it all, and his presence is overwhelming in the best sense. Playing 16 different instruments, he constructs a sound that feels vast but controlled, rich without becoming indulgent. The influences are clear, psychedelic music, gospel, classic rock, but they are not worn as references. Instead, they are absorbed into something that feels deeply personal and strangely timeless.

The singles trace the album’s emotional arc. ‘Always Together with You’ arrives with a sense of warmth and devotion, while ‘Crazy’ leans into something more unsettled. By the time ‘The Mainline Song’ unfolds, there is a sense of release, as if the record has worked its way through its own contradictions.

Critically, Everything Was Beautiful was met with widespread acclaim, and it is easy to understand why. There is a level of craftsmanship here that never feels showy, only assured. The arrangements swell and recede with precision, and even at their most expansive, they retain a clarity of purpose.

What makes the album resonate is not just its scale, but its sincerity. Spiritualized have always operated in a space where the spiritual and the physical blur, and here that balance feels particularly refined. The music reaches outward, but it remains grounded in something human.

If earlier Spiritualized records felt like transmissions from another place, Everything Was Beautiful feels closer, more immediate. Like reconnecting with something you thought you had lost, only to realise it has been quietly evolving all along.