Recommendation + Giveaway: Glasvegas / Soft Complex

September 30, 2008 by william alberque  Send to a Friend

Glasvegas are coming to town on Friday, October 3, at the Rock’n’Roll Hotel. This is excellent news – Glasvegas are a stellar new band from Scotland (as you’d guess within a nanosecond of lead singer James Allan opening his maw), combining shoegazing fuzz and Phil Spector-ish wall-of-sound production with oddly-emotional lyrics to an amazing effect. To have this show on the same night as We Fought the Big One is one of those profound ironies that we can only laugh about in retrospect.

If you’ve been following the NME’s recommendations (and who of us haven’t?), you’ve been following Glasvegas’ meteoric rise for more than a year. They’ve enjoyed a dizzying ascent from the initial buzz about their live shows, to an immensely-sought-after trio of self-produced, self-published 7″s. Then, Svetlana recommended them as potential world-beaters in a January 2008 BYT post. This was inevitably followed by a major label battle for their souls, won by Sony/BMG/Columbia, who has released two stellar singles from their debut album – the soaring “Geraldine,” and the glorious “Daddy’s Gone.” Neither troubled the charts, so it was somewhat of a surprise when the album debuted at #2 in the UK last week. For a few glorious hours, it even looked like they were set to pip Metallica to the #1 spot.

It’s worth discussing the lyrics a bit more. These are not quite your typical angst-ridden songs, as the comparisons with Oasis at their most emotional would suggest, instead focusing on impending and recent deaths, absent parents, failure and fear. Sort of like if the Jesus and Mary Chain were sick and sad watching their friends die instead of the Reid brothers trying to *be* those very sick and sad friends. I am genuinely shocked that their first proper release on Sony is sung from the point of view of a female social worker about someone on the edge of suicide. And, that it’s an ace, sing-a-long summer anthem. Or that “Daddy’s Gone” is sung from the point of view of a very angry abandoned child, to his sibling and father, berating, “I wont be the lonely one, a fifty-year old, reminiscing what I had, forget your dad, he’s gone.”

I imagine next they’ll release “Flowers & Football Tops,” which on listening you’d think was another fist-pumping terrace anthem, but is actually an achingly sad lament from a mother to her suddenly-dead son and the meaninglessness of the ad hoc memorial built in front of her home of bouquets of flowers and left-behind soccer jerseys. Though, here’s to hoping it’ll be the perfect and perfectly-overwrought “It’s My own Cheating Heart that Makes Me Cry,” which is simply the best song Phil Spector should have but never did produce. And, there’s another six or seven tracks on the album I haven’t even mentioned – this really could be the record of the year.

Beyond that, even the bsides are jaw-dropping, like the properly reverential and torrentially noisy cover of “Be My Baby” from their self-released 3rd single (the aforementioned “Cheating Heart”), or their revelatory cover of Nirvana’s “Come as You Are,” or the beautifully depressing mess of “A Little Thing Called ‘Fear,’” a sparely-arranged song dissolves into a hailstorm of noise and beautiful vocals. Still, “The Prettiest Thing on Saltcoats Beach” takes the cake, leading off into Spiritualized territory without ever giving a hint that they’ve even heard of the band before.

I’ve read a dozen interviews with the band, and they seem like an interesting lot – three blokes and a lass (the last on drums) who deliberately stay away from conversations about recent bands, focusing instead on James’ obsession with Phil Spector’s Christmas album and the unhealthy amount of attention they’re receiving across the UK. In that respect, it’s probably a pleasure for them to be able to get away and play before relatively uninitiated and uninterested American audiences right as the media fervor is reaching a higher pitch. I don’t know, though, but I’m definitely going to find out Friday. Team BYT worked diligently to get me attached to the gig, and I’ll be spinning between sets.

Local heroes Soft Complex will be adding their own unique brand of unspeakable beauty to the proceedings. Hope to see you there.

We have a pair of tickets to give away too. Comment to get them
NOW.

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