Our Lady Peace’s new album Spiritual Machines is not only a great album to listen to but also has a message that we could all benefit from. As you know we are in a time when computers are taking over. Spiritual Machines is based on a book by Ray Kurzweil titled The Age of Spiritual Machines—When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence. This book describes a world where the line between humanity and technology is fading—a world where the computer becomes our teacher, companion, and lover.
The band is made up of Raine Maida on vocals, Duncan Coutts on bass, Mike Turner on guitar, and Jeremy Taggart on drums. This album is a little different from past albums by the band. It’s a bit more serious, and increased use of acoustic guitars makes it a little quieter. There is less drum emphasis on this album as was seen in their previous albums such as Naveed with songs like "Starseed."
I think that the message of the computer taking over in society is portrayed well in songs on this album. "You haven’t seen the world outside for days, you sleep, you hope, you wait, imagination disappears," was one lyric sung by Raine in the song "Right Behind You."
I thought the best songs on the album were "In Repair," "Life" (which has received much radio play), "Are You Sad," "If You Believe," and "The Wonderful Future." The song "In Repair" focuses on how people tend to treat each other as machines every day. We should put more energy on focusing on those that matter the most to us.
I think we can all relate to this album and the messages it portrays. We all wonder if our computers will someday take over our lives and what would happen if we never had them. There is also a CD extra on this album. Go to http://ourladypeace.com/ and insert your CD into the disk drive and click on post operative. The post operative contains song rarities and info about the band among other cool things so check it out. Overall I thought this album was good and I would recommend it to you if you like the style of Our Lady Peace.
