| EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Glasvegas | ||||
| Released | 4 April 2011 | |||
| Recorded | 2010–11; Santa Monica, California, United States | |||
| Genre | Indie rock[1] | |||
| Length | 49:44 | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Producer | Flood, James Allan | |||
| Glasvegas chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Euphoric Heartbreak | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| BBC Music | (positive)[2] |
| Clash | (9/10)[3] |
| The Daily Telegraph | [4] |
| Drowned in Sound | (7/10)[5] |
| The Evening Standard | [6] |
| The Guardian | [7] |
| NME | (9/10)[8] |
| Pitchfork | (4.1/10)[9] |
| The Scotsman | [10] |
| TMR | [11] |
Euphoric Heartbreak (stylized as EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\) is the second studio album by Scottish rock group Glasvegas, which was released on 4 April 2011 by Columbia Records. The album was written, demoed and tracked by James Allan in a beach house in Santa Monica, California before full production and final recording took place in London. The album was produced by Flood[12] and mixed by Claudius Mittendorfer. The song, "The World is Yours" features on EA Sports FIFA 12.
Contents |
Glasvegas opened 2011 with an 8 date tour of Scotland which took the band to places in Scotland that are normally missed out by touring bands. The tour took in Kirkwall, Wick, Forres, Oban, Dunoon, Troon, Hawick and Dunfermline. The band announced the tour to ensure that Scotland would be the first to hear the new music. The tour received positive critical reviews with Simon Price of The Independent on Sunday quoting that "Glasvegas are still – and we desperately need this right now – a band to believe in".[13] The band also announced a showcase tour planned around smaller venues in March 2011 with several dates selling out within hours of going on sale followed by an Academy size tour planned for April/May 2011 to promote the new album.
However, by late February 2011 the relationship between Glasvegas and their record label (Sony) started to deteriorate which at the beginning of the year would have never been predicted. On delivery of the album Sony were extremely excited by the album, the quality of songs contained within and the fact it was a marked departure from the debut album! The marketing campaign kicked off in January 2011 with a free track giveaway and the track chosen was the second track on the album The World Is Yours[14]. However the band wanted something more substantial than just a free giveaway and eventually the label gave the green light to the band creating an Album Trailer Movie[15] to go alongside the free giveaway. This helped raise the profile of the free giveaway significantly but the early seeds of discord with the direction of the marketing campaign were sown.
Initial reviews of the album were generally positive with the Daily Record declaring it "'the album of the year!'"[16]
However by March the band felt that the marketing campaign that Sony put in place for Euphoric Heartbreak was not working and came a poor second to the campaign put in place for the band's debut album. The band had noticed that visual indicators of promotion to raise awareness of the new album was almost non-existent. There was no TV, Radio or billboard advertising for the new album which had a severe impact on raising awareness. This non-awareness was reinforced by the many fans (who had turned up to the band's gigs in March 2011) being unaware of the imminent release of Euphoric Heartbreak. This set the alarm bells ringing within the band and the relationship between band and label started to come undone with the band losing faith in the label's choices and general direction of the campaign.
As an aside one of the most heated areas for disagreement between band and label was the singles and the fact that Sony were enforcing the On air on sale policy for all their singles. This policy proved to be an utter disaster for Glasvegas and essentially nullified the impact of the first single "Euphoria, Take My Hand" which was released as an immediately available download on 7 February 2011 before being released physically on 28 March 2011. As a consequence of the Sony release policy the single received very little radio airplay and coupled with the fact it was caught up in the middle of a poor marketing campaign meant it never got out of the starting blocks in trying to reach a wider audience. In a rare moment of transparency Sony finally admitted in October 2011 that the on air on sale "does not work" and that they will "now be looking at each release on a case-by-case basis"[17] Moving forward towards the imminent release date; the only thing the band could control was their touring and they embarked on a grueling touring schedule in the early part of 2011. The live performance of "Euphoria, Take My Hand" was one of the many highlights and contributed to raising awareness of the singles and the forthcoming new album. On 4 April 2011 the bands sophomore album entered the charts at No. 10 despite the vast majority of the general public unaware it had been released. The album also hit the No.1 spot in Sweden
The album polarised opinion...some reviews criticised the band for being too bold and that the album was too big a departure from their debut whilst others praised this move forward and the high quality songwriting the album contained. NME gave the album a 9/10 matching the score they awarded the bands debut album. They said of the album..."Turning pain into joy is the stuff that dreams are made of for an album as thrillingly ambitious as it is enigmatic".[18]
Clash Magazine praised the band for delivering a more accomplished sound by reassuringly admitting "pioneers they remain"[19]
The BBC declared the album "a triumph" despite all the upheavel with the band in 2010.[20]
Pitchfork felt it was "too bombastic and that it simply numbs you with 50 minutes of novocaine for the soul."[21] while PopMatters (an International Webzine) gave the album 5/10 and said that the "album smears together into one gigantic well-produced stadium anthem, shining like the night sky while remaining just as inert".[22]
The Guardian awarded the album 3/5 but felt "that they were still waiting on an undeniable triumph from Glasvegas".[23]
Finally the Daily Bruin, a Student newspaper based at the University of California, Los Angeles said that the album "may surprise fans at first, with its more majestic and otherworldly music. However, it is a collection of beautiful, well-written and poignant songs worth significantly more of the listener's time than the 48 minutes it will take to listen to the album".[24]
Although a Top 10 position was a viewed as a decent showing by Sony, the band were extremely disappointed with this. The band would see out the rest of their contract and officially left Columbia Records on 4 August 2011,[25] 12 weeks after the release of Euphoric Heartbreak.
After the band's academy tour of Europe and the UK, the band left for their 7th tour of the United States in June 2011 playing to sold out venues in New York, Toronto and Los Angeles. On return to the UK the band played at Rockness in Scotland followed by a headline appearance on the John Peel Stage. Several more festival appearances including a top slot at Where The Action in Gothenburg, Sweden saw the band round of June 2011.
In July 2011, the band toured Australia for the first time playing three sold out shows at The Rosemount Hotel in Perth, The Metro in Sydney and The Hi-Fi in Melbourne before making a festival appearance at Splendour in The Grass held at Woodford 45 miles north west of Brisbane. The band also made their second trip to Japan to play the Fuji Rock Festival and then rounded off the summer by headlining the first ever Famous Grouse Music Festival and playing the V Festival for the first time.
The band have announced a tour of the UK and Ireland in October 2011 ending starting in Cork, then London and then working their way north and eventually ending with a gig in the band's hometown of Glasgow on Halloween
On the 16 September 2011 it was announced that the band's song "The World Is Yours" (the second listed track) from Euphoric Heartbreak was featured on the soundtrack to the FIFA 12 video game.[26]
Q announced that on the 25 October 2011 they will release a U2 cover album called AHK-toong BAY-bi Covered,[27] with various artists covering each track from U2's 1991 seventh studio album Achtung Baby. Glasvegas were asked by U2 to cover a track and the band chose the 11th track, "Acrobat".
A free download of "The World Is Yours" was made available on Glasvegas' official website on 16 January 2011. It has also been revealed that the opening track "Pain Pain, Never Again" is a spoken word piece, and likewise the final track "Change" features James Allan's mother performing a small spoken word piece. According to James Allan, the forward and backward slashes contained in the album title represent "the ascent, the crest of a wave, and then the crash."[12]
The band released their first official single from the album, "Euphoria, Take My Hand" on the 25 March.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Pain Pain, Never Again" | 2:59 |
| 2. | "The World Is Yours" | 4:53 |
| 3. | "You" | 4:29 |
| 4. | "Shine Like Stars" | 3:36 |
| 5. | "Whatever Hurts You Through the Night" | 4:38 |
| 6. | "Stronger Than Dirt (Homosexuality Pt. 2)" | 3:46 |
| 7. | "Dream Dream Dreaming" | 5:17 |
| 8. | "I Feel Wrong (Homosexuality Pt. 1)" | 5:08 |
| 9. | "Euphoria, Take My Hand" | 4:33 |
| 10. | "Lots Sometimes" | 7:11 |
| 11. | "Change" | 3:13 |
| iTunes edition | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length | |||||||
| 12. | "Euphoria, Take My Hand (Santa Monica Demo)" | 5:51 | |||||||
| Country | Peak position |
Certification | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sweden | 1 | ||
| United Kingdom | 10 | ||
| Norway | 26 | ||
| Ireland | 41 | ||
| Switzerland | 41 | ||
| Finland | 48 | ||
| Belgium | 98 | ||
| Spain | 100 |
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