Spiritualized And Nothing Hurt LP (Pink Vinyl)

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Ten Bands re-issue their albums on limited edition pink vinyl, all for one cause. This is the 6th year for the initiative that has raised over $200,000 for Gilda's Club NYC, an organization that provides community support for both those diagnosed with cancer and their caretakers. It is named after comedian Gilda Radner, who passed away from cancer at the age of 43 in 1989.

The sleeve tells you so much about the process. It's a picture of a lone figure. Suited up and immersed in interplanetary protective gear, he walks out across unmapped terrain. In the distance, a mountain range towers over the roughly gridded sand he's striding. This is very much a solo mission - giant steps into the unknown. Inside the helmet, there's all the uncertainty and madness that such a pursuit brings. That sleeve (designed with Mark Farrow), comes wrapped around And Nothing Hurt - Spiritualized's eighth album, the follow up to 2012's Sweet Heart, Sweet Light. From the opening lullaby of "A Perfect Miracle" through to the fading Morse Code at the close of "Sail On Through", it painstakingly wraps layer upon layer of gloriously transcendent sound together to create a mesmerizing and cinematic collection of songs.

There are points - the thunderous climax of "On The Sunshine"; the spectral waltz of "The Prize"; the towering guitar solo on "I'm Your Man" - where the waves of blissful noise are almost overwhelming, where one can imagine the studio's speakers vibrating themselves off of the walls. Which is an incredible feat when you discover that the album was conceived and recorded almost entirely by one man - Jason Pierce, AKA J.Spaceman - in an upstairs room in his east London home. "Making this record on my own sent me more mad than anything I've done before," Pierce explains. "We'd been playing these big shows and I really wanted to capture that sound we were making but, without the funds to do, I had to find a way to work within the constraints of what money I had. So I bought a laptop and made it all in a little room in my house."

Whereas bedroom recording is commonplace for a generation of musicians who've grown up with horizon-expanding tech, Spiritualized have long used the studio as they would an extra member of the band - as a vital building block in the construction of some of the most cherished records of the modern era. This time would be very different. With no grounding in digital recording, Jason had to learn everything from scratch. For the listener, the nine tracks on And Nothing Hurt effortlessly replicate the scale and power of Spiritualized's previous releases, whether it's the sonic blowback of "On The Sunshine", the last dime in the jukebox love letter of "Let's Dance" or the swell of an imaginary orchestra that seems to lift "Damaged" towards the heavens as it plays out. Alternately intimate, hypnotic, cyclonic and downright spiritual.

Six years in the making, And Nothing Hurt, the eighth album by Spiritualized, is instantly recognizable for its trademark meld of garage rock, pillowy psychedelia, gospel, R&B, and blues via guitars, strings, horns, keyboards, and a stellar backing chorus in intimate, vulnerable, confessional songs. As a songwriter and arranger, all of Pierce's strengths are readily apparent. During the recording process, Pierce felt he was creating the final Spiritualized effort; pleased with results, that seems no longer to be the case. In full, And Nothing Hurt stands alongside the very best outings on the Spiritualized shelf. Its finest moments are consequently its most tender, revealing how much Pierce has grown as a writer. If he continues to record, this will be the album that opens a vibrant new chapter in the saga of Spiritualized.