Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace is an ambitious fusion of Jason Pierce’s two passions: Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound and the Stooges’ venomous garage rock. The half-time drudgery of “This Little Life of Mine” and “Never Goin’ Back” constitutes some of the most fearsome work Pierce has ever attempted, while “The Power and the Glory” and “The Ballad of Richie Lee” are softer ballads that nonetheless retain a painful edge. Between collisions of tempestuous noise and orchestral splendor, Pierce is still singing from his self-made mountaintop. His brand of gospel has never felt more melodramatic than it does on “Lay It Down Slow” and “Lord Let It Rain On Me.” All of the album’s oppositional forces are reconciled on “Hold On,” a grand marriage of rock’n’roll uproar and symphonic intricacy. Amazing Grace reveals an older, more vulnerable Pierce. He continues to refine his sonic palette, and move beyond his obsession with altered states to expose to the listener more of his fractured inner psyche.