Weekly > Reviews
Glasvegas - Glasvegas
I know I say this every year, but it’s just one of those musical facts that can’t be ignored…every year we like to have a new bunch of lads to hype up, a band that is closer to the terraces in it’s inspiration and one that the football lads can consider one of their own. That band this year is Glasvegas, but they come with an interesting twist or two.
For a start James Allan is an ex-professional footballer, a man who has grown up in a tough and poor district of Glasgow, made something of himself once over and then taken a big career changing decision and made it all over again, this time his career doesn’t show any signs of faltering. That kind of achievement and willingness to gamble is something you can’t help but admire.
The other striking thing for a band that actually use two terrace songs (well songs that have been bastardised by the supporters for years) on their album, is that they don’t actually come over that laddish throughout most of the album. In fact if anything the lyrics have a great deal of social concern and a certain lack of self confidence to them, never more than on It’s My Own Cheating Heart.
That track shows both positives and negatives to Glasvegas, it opens with a beautiful intro, then seems to get a bit sloppy, but is pulled back by the lyrics that show the insecurities faced in a relationship. Another similar success and failure for me is Stabbed which picks up the violence of knife crime in Britain as he delivers a monotone story over Beethovans Moonlight Sonata. While it’s great that they want to tackle these issues, it falls a little short musically for me.
Flowers & Football Tops is the track that best nails this on the head, it’s a poignant song from a Mothers perspective about losing a young Son in tragic circumstances, it’s beautifuly and compasionately delivered, the music ebbs and flows, starting off slow and then building to a Jesus and Mary Chain wall of noise and uses the “My only sunshine” lyric superbly, it could have been a disasterous opening to the album if not handled right, but they’ve given the album a magical opening with this track.
- Glasvegas
- Glasvegas (2008)
- Category: Album
- Label: Sony BMG
- Reviewed by: Kev
- Published on: 08 Sep 2008
- Photography by: Sonia Grace
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
Weblinks
Add to favouritesThe two recent singles Geraldine and Daddy’s Gone both continue the social kitchen sink drama style and are both good efforts, as quite often happens with albums it does suffer from a dip in the middle with Lonesome Swan, Go Square Go and That Makes Me Cry not exactly the strongest tracks, but they pull ity back round towards the end with two great songs S.A.D. Light and the epic closer Ice Cream Van.
As an album it’s being hailed as one of the greatest debut’s ever, which for me is purely hype, it’s a good debut, one that shows a lot of songwriting potential in the band, but it’s not the complete album for me, maybe that is still to come from them in the future.
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