Viva Glasvegas

CD CHOICE: Glasvegas, Euphoric/Heartbreak,Columbia ****

It’s difficult second album time for the Glaswegian four-piece, and the lead-up to this release couldn’t have been worse. Lead singer and chief songwriter James Allan has being going awol over the past few years, and we now know that those “exhausted and dehydrated” excuses the band were using to explain absences from key gigs (most notably, California’s Coachella festival) were due to Allan overdosing. To add to the misery, they lost their original drummer.

Deciding to decamp to Santa Monica to write this album, the fears were that the drugs, personnel changes and a sunny California sound would turn the band into more of a Simple Minds than a Jesus and Mary Chain.

But Glasvegas is a very special band. On their debut they sounded like My Bloody Valentine as produced by a glam-rock expert, and managed to bring a Tamla Motown-type pop swagger to their kitchen-sink indie sound.

The opener here, Pain Pain Never Again, goes even further than anything on the debut by bringing a John Barry orchestral sweep to proceedings, and Allan sings as if his very life depended on it. The singer has some issues to work through (sudden stardom, record-company pressure, drug abuse), and he almost gets operatic here in his delivery at times, but with his strong accent (and the way they've mixed the vocals) he is often indecipherable in these songs.

The big music compensates, however. On The World Is Yours(the strongest track) and Whatever Hurts You Through the Nightit gets spectacularly Spectoresque, before the tempo drops dramatically on the more introspective and confessional songs.

There's quite bit of contriteness on Euphoric/ Heartbreak– disturbingly so sometimes. You won't find a Geraldine here, but you will find artfully composed and skilfully arranged scabrous songs about personal turmoil and regret. This is very much James Allan's long day's journey into night. Strap yourself in – the going gets rough. See glasvegas.net

Download tracks: Pain Pain Never Again, The World Is Yours, Euphoria, Take My Hand