Glasvegas - A Snowflake Fell (And it Felt Like a Kiss) Review

Phil Spector’s A Christmas Gift for You it isn’t, but Glasvegas’ A Snowflake Fell mishmashes Spector’s Wall of Sound, reverbed explosions with the Jesus and Mary Chain’s noise-scraped darklands of twisting, snarling squalls. The result is an oddball holiday record that embraces the former king of the ‘60s single’s Wagnerian approach to pop with as much fervor as their full-length debut dedicates itself to unabashed earnestness. This is a bit more than a simple holiday cash-in, but it falls short of anything all that necessary or memorable. Call it stocking filler -- which, as far as puns go, is at least as good as the EP's title....full text Glasvegas’ announcement that they were to spend the latter part of a phenomenally successful summer retreating to Transylvania to record a proper, chime-flecked Christmas album – complete with Romanian choir – was greeted in some quarters with stifled guffaws.

Glasgow’s doom-pop henchmen, swapping their beloved Buckfast for the cultural surrounds of Carpathian mythology and mass, mountainous grandeur? Indeed. But ‘A Snowflake Fell...’ is no gag – Glasvegas not only have a genuine passion for this sort of thing that makes The Wombats’ Chrimbo effort sound like Las Ketchup, but they continue to operate with a level of sincerity that some will always find uncomfortable....full text This year's most depressing Christmas offering? Pah, John Fratelli, you don't have a snowflake's chance in hell with James Allen and his black clad pals around. You ain't even produced the most depressing single by a Scottish band this year.

Yes, that's right. Leading the charge away from mince pies and mulled wine to a half-frozen bottle of cider in Glasgow Necropolis are Jim and the gang, with a mini-album packed to the rafters with such wonderfully festive fair as Fuck You It's Over and Please Come Back (you can just see the 'it's NAE aboot ma father!' protestations starting now, can't you? Get over it, man! Good U2 impression there, mind). All you need to decide is which of the songs on offer here is the most miserable of the lot.

Is it the fragile and all-too-short fairytale soundtrack opening of Careful What You Wish For? Or is it Cruel Moon, a Suede-esque piano ballad of epic proportions? Could it be the wonderfully mournful title song and half-arsed bid for the Christmas number one, or even the sublime cover of favourite carol Silent Night? In fact, any one of the six tracks on this indie-stocking-filler-to-die-for could wipe the floor with whatever the opposition wants to throw at it....full text