Thor Christensen

Gospel and psychedelic rock seem like awfully strange bedfellows. But Spiritualized merged the two so easily Thursday night you wonder why more bands haven't tried it.

REX C. CURRY/Special Contributor

Bandleader Jason Pierce, sang about Jesus, the devil and dope on Thursday at the Lakewood Theater.

Performing a rare Dallas show at the Lakewood Theater, the veteran British group started with a fuzz-drenched "Amazing Grace" before turning 1992's "Shine a Light" into a mind-melting Baptist singalong. Bandleader Jason Pierce has never been much of a vocalist, but he wisely brought along Wendi Rose and Claudia Smith to provide sweet soul singing.

And while Mr. Pierce mentioned Jesus in a half-dozen tunes, his redemption songs went far beyond the Bible. "Sometimes you kick the devil out, but angels smash your face," he sang in "Cheapster."

In the strange world of Spiritualized, drugs and God go hand in hand. "Gonna have good times, good dope and good fun," he sang in "Lay Back in the Sun."

Yet unlike most druggy psychedelic bands, Spiritualized didn't jam much: The mood and the melodies were important, not the solos. And rather than try to hypnotize the crowd with one drone after the next, the septet was at its best rocking fast like Iggy Pop in tunes such as "She Kissed Me (And It Felt Like a Hit)."

The 42-year-old Mr. Pierce – alias J. Spaceman – is touring for the first time since almost dying in 2005 from pneumonia, and the Dallas show was a warm-up for the group's gig today at Austin City Limits Music Festival. As always, he cut an impenetrable figure, wearing sunglasses, saying nothing to the crowd and facing guitarist Tony "Doggen" Foster as he sang.

But the show was visually stunning despite him. With the stage shrouded in thick fog and shadows, the band looked like extras from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining – an effect that made Spiritualized seem all the more spiritual.

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