Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\
by Glasvegas
Production Flood & Allan
Sony Music
Digital CD
No Matrix

Sweet Bitter Love / Sweet Bitter Melancholia

There are some albums that are easy and EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\ is one. To start with this is an album, a single entity, a self contained work of art which is something of an exception in these dark days of the dismembering divisive download. Take a segment out of EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\ and you'll be holding a single unique gem but you'll also be missing the point completely. And why do I say that EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\ is easy? Well it's easy because EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\ is perfect, there are no weaknesses here, from start to finish it ebbs and flows and spills over the edges with sweet bitter love and sweet bitter melancholia, all you have to decide is whether you like EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\ or not - I do.

The disembodied narration of "Pain Pain, Never Again" (in French & English) set with in a disturbing milieu of diffracted electronica and radio interference opens the album setting the mood music for that follows - the track builds and then segues into plaintively explosive "The World Is Yours". Each track then moves seamlessly into the next intermeshing as emotion is doused with petrol and the heart beats up love. The production throughout by Flood and Allan can not be overstated their ears have been working overtime. Nothing is over done or contrived or out of place. There maybe a touch of The Cocteau Twins about "Whatever Hurts You Through The Night" (factored up at least ten fold though). And maybe there's a touch of "All These Things That I've Done" in "Euphoria, Take My Hand" but that aside EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\ is uniquely of itself.

So what is EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\ ? Well its humanist tale made epic. The themes: the loss of love, the loss of innocence, alienation and obsession run throughout the album but each theme is painted on a massive scale. This is Cecil B DeMille stuff a mighty wall of sound produced by Glasvegas surrounding and constantly threatening to engulf James Allan's anguished cries. It's a Victorian Memorial to a lost soul - it's a Mausoleum in the Duomo -its "Love Amongst the Ruins" by Burne-Jones. This is what EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\ is.

With their dual perspectives "Stronger Than Dirt (Homosexuality, Pt. 2)" playing now and "I Feel Wrong (Homosexuality, Pt. 1)" separated by "Dream Dream Dreaming" are definitely the centrepiece of the LP, the later works as a bridge between the two not a wall. But it's left to the penultimate track the simply constructed elegy "Lots Sometimes" that circulates and builds round the two words in the title to be the most effecting. If your not blubbing by the time The Monkees start singing you've na got a heart but a swinging brick. You probably need to go back to 1970 and John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band for scream therapy of the magnitude found on EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\ - it's hard to believe there will be a more personal and passionate outpouring in what remains of 2011 or for a long time to come.

From an outsider's perspective James Allan has lived a charmed life. In his thirty years he's been a professional footballer and a rock star. But like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego he has also been cast into the fiery furnace and spared from the burning flames by the hand of God. All he has left to achieve now is to become immortal, and then die. It's the ultimate trick. Even Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner couldn't pull that one off. If anyone can do it James Allan can.

unedited crapola