Where the last album--definitely the most underappreciated album to come out of the U.K. in the past decade--was well-suited to be heard in both a dimly lit room with a pile of really good drugs or in a concert hall, Let it come down demands to be performed outside, where its psychedelic waves of joy can wash over the listener. This album belongs on Broadway, where it would be the ideal soundtrack to a meditative musical about love and addiction. "Nothing hurts you like the pain of someone you love," Pierce sings on "Stop your crying," an imploring sentiment backed and emphasized by the sweeping ethereal chorus that backs him up.

The sound, augmented by an orchestra reportedly over 100 members strong, is prog rock meets the Beatles meets gospel church music, with buoyant, ebullient hooks, soaring melodies, and an emotion-laden infusion of sounds that uplifts, while at the same time hiding less-than-uplifting lyrics; like on "the straight and the narrow" which opens with the lyrics, "The trouble with the straight and the narrow is it's so thin/ I keep sliding off to the side /and the devil makes good use for these hands of mine." Pierce's well-publicized struggle with drink and drugs ("And I don't go looking for my sins you know/ They come my way and i just get on and go") appears throughout the album. However, at the same time, this song sounds like it could would have been perfectly at home on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Most amazing is the versatility that this album portrays. The opener, "On fire," is prog-rock and classical music, a driving beat, the aforementioned chorus singing, and a wicked Jerry Lee Lewis piano and organ opening in a pastiche that hooks the listener from moment one.