Spiritualized mastermind Jason Pierce (a/k/a J Spaceman) has never catered to the music fans who prefer their lyrics and riffs spoon-fed to them in neatly packaged doses of three-minute songs. The chain-smoking Brit’s first band, the chemically influenced Spacemen 3, cultivated their own sprawling brand of space rock, alternating layers of roaring noise and fuzzy distortion with hymn-like vocals, droning repetition, and blissed-out symphonies of sound. Indeed, the tranquil dirges that outfit created more than lived up to the title of a collection of early demos: Taking Drugs (To Make Music To Take Drugs To). After the band imploded, Pierce formed a soul- and gospel-touched doppelgŠnger of the Spacemen called Spiritualized, who are best known on these shores for 1997’s haunting, free-floating opus Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (Arista).

It was from this reference point and not their lushly orchestrated latest album, Let It Come Down (Arista), that Spiritualized approached their Axis show last Friday. Pierce is reported to have used nearly 100 musicians to craft Let It Come Down’s mix of soaring strings and occasional pounding rock, and at first it seemed as if many of those players had shown up to perform live: 13 musicians were crammed onto the tiny Axis stage, including a horn quintet, two percussionists, a keyboardist, a bassist, and two guitarists besides Pierce himself.

But the set wasn’t geared toward the newer orchestral compositions. Instead, the two-hour performance aimed for the sprawling atmospheres of Ladies and Gentlemen, which functioned less as a collection of separate songs than as one long sustained groove. Over a span of some 15 minutes, the set’s epic opener, a lazily stretched-out "Cop Shoot Cop," cycled through fierce guitar riffs coordinated with colored spotlights, whirring space noises, hushed vocal effects, and orchestral flourishes. Old Spiritualized favorites like "Shine a Light" and "Let It Flow" mixed with the burning guitars of the new album’s "Out of Sight"; extended instrumental jams collapsed into free-form jazz, subtle lullabies, and noisy chaos.

At times the wealth of instruments drowned out Pierce’s vocals, and the long instrumental breaks (especially during the first half of the show) verged on tedium. The band finally did settle into a groove with the encores, which included two Spacemen 3 chestnuts: a humming, hypnotic version of "Take Me to the Other Side," and the mournful, yearning "Lord Can You Hear Me."