Album: Glasvegas, Euphoric Heartbreak (Columbia)

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Kelly Rissman

US News Reporter

Are you lonesome tonight? Are you missing someone so much you're losing your mind? James Allan is.

The proverbially "difficult" second Glasvegas album is driven by longing and loss, with – as its title suggests – a strange undercurrent of triumphal bliss. It begins in a manner that will have most fans of the Spectoresque Scottish noise-rockers checking the CD to make sure it's the same band. With "The World is Yours", though, Euphoric Heartbreak hits its stride, Allan singing unpalatable truths over a track with the giddy whirl of U2 circa The Unforgettable Fire. It isn't the only track with a lush, layered sound. The album builds to its bittersweet climax until a mother's voice counsels, "Listen son, don't be scared ...." A strange end to a strange album, whose mood, to invoke one of their earlier songs, is not so much "Fuck You, It's Over" as "fuck yeah, it's over!"