Glasvegas: Glasvegas
Thursday, 11 Sep 2008 10:54
Glasvegas release their eagerly-awaited debut album
Columbia Records, out September 8th.
In a nutshell…
Glaswegian geniuses live up to the hype
What's it all about?
Glasvegas' self-titled debut album marks the culmination of two years of conventional ladder-climbing by the alt-rock group.
Containing the re-released Daddy's Gone, which just about everyone loved first time round, their three limited edition 7" releases and six new songs, Glasvegas' first album foray is a surefire number one.
Whether the album or the band can live up to the lazy hype of being labelled the Oasis of Glasgow is another matter entirely...
Who's it by?
Glasgow east-enders Glasvegas are cousins James (vocals, guitar) and Rab Allan (lead guitar, backing vocals), Paul Donoghue (bass, backing vocals) and Caroline McKay (drums).
The group had their breakthrough in 2006 while playing at local venue King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, where 13 years previously Oasis were spotted by legendary Scottish producer Alan McGee.
It was McGee who set Glasvegas on their way, with three limited edition 7" singles and critical acclaim following.
If you didn't know about them before this year, you most probably did after promising sets at Glastonbury, T in the Park, Reading and Leeds, and you almost certainly will when their album goes on sale.
As an example...
"So this is the grand finale, the crescendo of demise/This is the happy ending
where the bad guy goes down and dies/This is the end, with me on my knees and wondering why?/Cross my heart, hope to die/It's my own cheating heart that makes me cry." - It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry
"I won't be the lonely one, sitting on my own and sad/A 50-year-old reminiscing what I had/I wont be the lonely one, sitting on my own and sad/Forget your dad, he's gone." - Daddy's Gone
"Baby, why you not home yet, baby it's getting late/I wish you would be home by now/Doorbell rings, who could it be at this time/Police on my left and right, my son’s not coming home tonight." - Flowers and Football Tops
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys
Critics have been clamouring to heap praise on Glasvegas since the band caught the eye at King Tut's.
Earlier this year they won the Philip Hall Radar award at the NME awards, while they are certain to beat the Ting Tings, Fleet Foxes, the Last the Shadow Puppets and Vampire Weekend to the best new act at this year's Q awards.
Further recognition is frankly obligatory.
What the others say
"These hard-nosed softies are unique and this, make no mistake, is their Definitely Maybe, the quintessential noise-pop set of the modern age." – Observer
So is it any good?
"I'm gonnae get stabbed," James Allan drawls in Stabbed, two minutes, 22 seconds of the spoken word set against Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.
The track is typical of a record that is no less scared of being top-heavy (the disc's opener is about a real-life teen stabbing) than it is of being pigeonholed, with James asking "what's the story morning glory?" in It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry.
Glasvegas the album is as honest and breathlessly exciting a full release that fans who got excited by Daddy's Gone could have hoped for.
In the aforementioned opening track, Flowers and Football Tops, James sings of a notorious stabbing of a 15-year-old from his mother's perspective, effortlessly combining poignancy with relevancy.
After the soul-wrenching adaptation of You are My Sunshine to close the track, the band launch into a tribute of the eponymous social-worker-turned-groupie Geraldine.
Then, in It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry, James keeps up the momentum by admonishing his own shortcomings; he's a jealous lover who takes too many drugs and spoke back to his mum as a kid.
And the album goes on, from strength to strength, keeping up the moonlit playground feel throughout.
Glasvegas are young, but they've already lived enough to create a genuinely imaginative and intriguing musical episode that is unlike anything you will listen to this year.
To become a truly, truly great first album, the record has to be near damn perfect, and Glasvegas have virtually done it.
Sure, it's on the light side, the production has too much of a static electricity sound to it, but Glasvegas the album, like Glasvegas the band, is a stunning and timely reminder that the indy rock scene is not all about image and there are still musicians who can turn up and flip it on its head.
9/10
Matthew Champion