Glasvegas – EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\

 

So here we go again, the difficult flipside to the great debut, as inevitable as glorious Scottish sporting failure. Euphoria and heartbreak, right enough. True brilliance rarely strikes twice, and rarer still twice in a row. And so it goes with Glasvegas’ second full-length outing, a decent enough collection of songs that see the four-piece abandon their emotional punch for extra reverb and a few FM friendly bass lines. There was a longing about the debut: for love, justice, for hope; Glasvegas were the archetypical band to believe in, and maybe still are.

At times here they recall The Killers in their full pomp, done with a kooky Scottish accent. But glorious moments do break through the fuzz; see The World Is Yours and its chorus of “you don’t need me as much as I need you,” or the emotional confusion on Stronger Than Dirt, but EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\ ultimately expresses more a longing for a larger share of the US market, than for the shared dreams of yore. [PJ Meiklem]