Spiritualized

Ever since he effectively dissolved Spacemen 3 and struck out on his own, Spiritualized frontman Jason Pierce has been chasing the grandiose swells of the "Wall of sound" production style employed by Phil Spector and Brian Wilson. While working on his latest album, And Nothing Hurt, Pierce reached the maximum number of tracks that his recording software would allow, layering his songs with lush string, horn and vocal arrangements. The resulting songs put the over-the-top studio wizardry to good use, turning simple rock and pop tunes into sweeping, painstakingly-composed anthems.