Glasvegas Euphoric Heartbreak 3202

Glasvegas first emerged in 2007 ticking many of the ‘big sounding’ indie band boxes: a gang of four working-class kids from Glasgow’s east end flaunting a woolly-mammoth-sized take on Jesus and Mary Chain scuzz and 60s girl-pop grandeur. Unlike the vast majority of their peers, however, this lot actually had something — the sound was authentically naive, brittle; the clunking bum-TISH rhythms and singer James Allan’s vocals betraying a strange vitality the rest could only dream of getting close to.

Since their self-titled 2008 debut it’s been far from plain sailing for the group, however. Drummer Caroline McKay has departed, to be replaced by Swede Jonna Löfgren, while James Allan reportedly overdosed on animal tranquiliser at the Coachella festival in 2009, also going AWOL for five days around the time of Mercury Prize ceremony of the same year.

Glasvegas were nominated for the 2009 Mercury Music Prize, however lead singer James Allan disappeared just days before the Awards Ceremony on 8 September 2009. He went missing for a total of five days before eventually turning up safe and well in New York. Euphoric /// Heartbreak. Euphoric Heartbreak is the second studio album by Scottish rock group Glasvegas, which was released on 4 April 2011 by Columbia Records. It reached No.10 in the UK and No.1 in Sweden. The album was.

Despite all the turbulence they’ve made it back for a second bout, and EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK announces Glasvegas MkII as a somewhat different beast to its predecessor. U2 producer Flood marshals the band’s bulldozing energy into an altogether slicker sort of bombast, and admittedly there are moments (Dream Dream Dreaming and the seemingly endless build-up of Lots Sometimes) where the songs sound in danger of losing their way in the middle of it all.

Mainly, though, Glasvegas wear their professional makeover with surprising panache. Shootshifter for mac. Part of the credit for this belongs to new stickslady Löfgren, who brings complex accents to tracks like The World Is Yours: a star-spangled gallop whose electric whammies and crashing snares sound like Echo & The Bunnymen in their Killing Moon pomp.

But ultimately the record belongs again to James Allan, who brings all the right notes of toughness and vulnerability to Shine Like Stars’ Killers-ish synth-rock and the pounding, disconsolate You, a highlight which hot-wires the Doves template and plunges races it straight off the nearest available cliff. He also gives fuller rein to the lonesome upper registers of his voice on the majestic I Feel Wrong and Whatever Hurts You Through the Night’s exquisite, slow-motion heartbreak.

Put simply, you feel that every note is earned with this guy, and when he duets with his mum (seriously) on set closer Change you know that however much this album risks trading in on some of their native charm as a band, Glasvegas have come through admirably.

Scottish alt-rockers Glasvegas' 2008 debut landed the brooding Glaswegians a Mercury Prize nomination. Glasvegas' winning but not-so-subtle amalgamation of U2, Echo & the Bunnymen, Joy Division, late-period Depeche Mode, and the Jesus and Mary Chain hinted at a band that was ready to make a go of it, and their simple, earnest lyrics, as filtered through the thick yet sweet brogue of frontman James Allan, had listeners swooning, despite all of the band's sonic redundancies. Written, demoed, and tracked at a beach house in Santa Monica, California before undergoing final production under the direction of producer Flood in London, Euphoric Heartbreak keeps the fire burning, but feeds it only the wispiest of kindling. Like their Welsh counterparts, the Joy Formidable, Glasvegas have their sights set clearly on the upper bowl of the stadium, but where TJF manage to fill that space with an unholy, hook-filled racket, Glasvegas tend to let the moment fizzle. At its most immediate, like on the standout tracks “Shine Like Stars,” the Disintegration-era Cure-inspired “Whatever Hurts You Through the Night,” and the soaring title cut, the latter of which would sit snugly amidst the teenage ruin of a John Hughes prom scene, the band sounds ready for battle, but too much time is spent slogging through the swamps of defeat, many of which are adorned with forgettable choruses and melodies that arrive at dead ends, only to bash themselves against the wall hoping for some kind of merciful respite.