Healthy Living Books Music

Rating: - Absolute tosh
I was trying to think of something profound about this album, to try and back up the title of the review. But unfortunately I couldn't and after a few more minutes of thought decided that I had wasted enough time, money and effort on this band as it is.

So I think the following is fairly apt, a completely useless bunch of over hyped rubbish...........best thing to do would be to turn the CD into a coaster.

Enough said

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Rating: - Top Scots Rock
For once you can believe the hype - the Glasvegas debut album is stunning. James Allan delivers his songs in a very Scottish voice indeed which will not be to everyone's taste but it lends real authenticity to his lyrics of contemporary Glasgow life: stabbings; absent fathers; social workers; paranoia and broken childhood dreams.

The music is guitar driven with strong percussion but it stands apart by way of its shimmering guitar backdrop, almost a `wall of sound' shining like a dirty jewel. The songs soar and are almost anthemic but are never dull due to the power and meaning behind the lyrics.

The singles `Geraldine', `Flowers & Football Tops' and the poignant `Daddy's Gone' are truly superb and rightly celebrated, but for me `It's My Own Cheating Heart..' is stunning with its pounding guitar line and lyrics delivered from the heart. `Glasvegas' shows amazing confidence for a debut album; `Stabbed' features a dreamlike lyric about imminent wounding spoken over Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. The band are also not afraid to sing a snatch of `You are my Sunshine' at the end of `Flowers & Football Tops'; both of these tricks work superbly. The final track, `Ice Cream Van' begins almost ethereally but gradually builds to a crescendo of guitar noise and is a fitting finale. Even the foul-mouthed singalong of 'Go Square Go' makes sense when you listen to the lyrics.

`Glasvegas' is a great record and shows how effective music can be when it is delivered with passion, meaning and authenticity.

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Rating: - Glasvegas, have they taken the crown
Glasgow band Glasvegas have really divided people down the middle, some people love em other wish they would stop hurting their ears.

You have already seen the star rating that I have given the record, so you know full well wich camp I am in, but no record is perfect, not even dark side of the moon is with out its flaws. So I am going to pick out the moments that don't work on the bands debut release.

I cant recall the name of the track, but on this certain track, there is a chant of lair, lair, pants on fire. Which would if this were a humours track, but there is nothing humours in the slightest about this band, so the decision to put a lyric such as this is one the most bizarre, misguided and down right idiotic lyrics that I have ever heard.

But Stabbed, the track Stabbed, really takes the fringing cake. The band are going for a deep, brooding and menacing tone, but the track fails miserably, in fact it made me laugh as if I had mental health problems.

I am sure that people who like the record may not agree with those two points that I have raised, it was just those two things that prevented this from getting that extra star.

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Rating: - At last a band with authenticity
In an entertainment business full of faked stance and faux emotion, all of a sudden something REAL has come along. Glasvegas are tough, rough around the edges but ultimately this is the genuinely most affecting releases not just in 2008 but for many years.

Let's be clear about this, 'Glasvegas' aren't romanticised 'loser' jangle from the bedroom of a semi-detached, this is raw anguish, the sound of souls being shreaded by the dismal reality of life on the streets of the East End of Glasgow. The album covers such topics as gang violence, disfunctional families and perhaps most of all the utter desperation of the poverty trap and the yearning for a better life.

If all this sounds a little dreary, like a Ken Loach film set to music, then it is most definitely not. Glasvegas takes you through the spectrum of human emotions and back again.

Heart breaking music if ever there was.

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Rating: - Tidal Wave Of Hype
Tidal wave of hype blah blah ******* blah.

Was the hype justified? Well that depends on what you mean by 'hype' - if a record company signs a new band they like, then they will always try to sell them - that's their job. In that respect hype is always justified.

Whether the band lives up to the hype is another matter. I was going to buy this on day of release but didn't - the hype was too far above the plimsol line.

So I waited a couple of months, still interested to hear it:

Thematically Glasvegas is a very heavy LP - it's got the kind of full-on unflinching 'rock and roll - deal with it' vibe that Unknown Pleasures had. This pretty much makes it the diameter opposite of bands like Coldplay, whose discontent seems to stem from paradise syndrome and misplaced earnestness.

Trackwise I'd have to say there's nothing here that is less than very good, with occasional bits of brilliance - my fave track being S.A.D. Light. A proper anthem for anyone who lives north of Kent.

Glasvegas were on a fine line with this LP - at times they get dangerously close to greeting sentimentality territory but somehow the deftness of the lyrics and the understated musicianship pull it back from the edge.

The problem with hype is that it doesn't convey the scope of a record. And the hype (true to form) doesn't really give an idea of how remarkable this release is. And it's not perfect, although if I ever heard a perfect record it would probably be by idiots and only merit one star.