Spiritual Machines
Label: Columbia
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Spiritual Machines
One could consider Our Lady Peace the modern-rock version of AC/DC — every song sounds a lot like the one before it. Add a concept record to the Canadian band’s equation, and you come up with “Spiritual Machines,” an easy album to swallow. If you liked the group’s last outing, “Happiness … Is Not a Fish That You Can Catch,” you’ll probably dig “Machines.” It’s much the same, except for five spoken-word tracts reciting passages from “The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence,” the book that inspired the album.
Still, there’s an honesty in Raine Maida’s vocals that lends texture and complexity to the record, which really is a simple celebration of the pathos — as opposed to the cold efficiency — of the computer age. Cuts like the first single “Life” and “Made to Heal” tap into the power of human emotion and give the record a larger-than-life feel.
This article appears in Mar 28 – Apr 3, 2001.