Sweet Heart, Sweet Light

Spiritualized's seventh album, Sweet Heart Sweet Light, returns to the soaring rock & roll symphonies of their classic album Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, inspired in part by the band performing that album on tour while Jason Pierce and company wrote new songs. Recorded over the course of two years in locations as far-flung as Los Angeles, Wales, and Reykjavik but mixed in Pierce's own house, the album is similarly expansive but familiar, with Pierce mentioning Chuck Berry, the Beach Boys, and Peter Brötzmann as other touchstones. The Velvet Underground-like chug of album opener "Hey Jane" just underscores that Spiritualized are experts at re-energizing rock's traditional and experimental impulses.