Our look at the closing lines of reviews of the week’s biggest new music continues with a look at reactions to the self-titled album by Glasvegas, which arrives in stores today:
• “Too often, though, the album slogs through droning nonstarters such as ‘Go Square Go’ and ‘Polmont on My Mind,’ and that’s even excepting ‘Stabbed,’ a ridiculous spoken-word soliloquy that jacks Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata so flagrantly it’d make J.R. Rotem blush. It’s a bull market for fetishizing exotica in rock music today, but though Glasvegas certainly sounds like Scotland, it feels more like its eponymous Sin City: sprawling and glittery but ultimately artificial.” [LA Times]
• “Glasvegas reached No. 2 in Britain and Ireland when it was released there this fall, and it’s easy to imagine British crowds raising their voices for choruses like ‘I’ll turn on my S.A.D. light’ in ‘S.A.D. Light,’ a song about seasonal affective disorder. Glasvegas is determinedly provincial, insisting there is grandeur in everyday lives. But what sounds rousing in Britain can sound sodden and overwrought to American ears—or at least to mine.” [NY Times]
• “Though Glasvegas uses limited sounds and rhythms—drummer Carolyn McKay famously learned to play only two drums before the band started the album at Brooklyn Recording studios in Cobble Hill with producer Rich Costey—it turns out to be overflowing with nuance and detail.” [Newsday]
• “It makes for a compelling blend of grays—Flowers and Football Tops is based on the real-life murder of a Glasgow teenager—lit by singer James Allan’s high, bright hurrahs. You may get lost in his thick Scottish accent—until the chant-ready choruses come around.” [Rolling Stone]
It’ll do until something good comes out.
@Christopher R. Weingarten: that space threw me off for a sec: “Who are the Ram Ones?”
@AL: Her and Meg White should join forces. That way, there’d be a total of four drums between them.
Saw these dudes last night in the Virgin Megastore Union Square. Not a bad performance minus the incoherent babbling.
my god how is it that so many critics with critic jobs don’t know that “stabbed” is a reference to this:
So it’s “Glass”vegas not “Gloss”vegas, right? Probably a dumb question but I was wondering as much after I saw the Rhapsody ad(and had never heard of them before).
One of the most boring bands I’ve heard this month.
I saw these guys on Letterman last night. What a goofy looking bunch. Also, it’s clear that the drummer plays a stand-up kit because she doesn’t really know how to play drums.
They’re pretty good. I got this as an import several months ago (which is why it appears on my Best of 2008 list at #83 or something like that). Everything about the band can be summed up in one sentence: “They sound like a Scottish Silversun Pickups”. And since I love Silversun Pickups, I find Glasvegas to be pretty good.
I like Weingarten’s twitter-sized review [twitter.com]
aw, shucks. thx!