Disco de Cocteau Twins: “Heaven or las Vegas”

Ah... My entire life seemed to revolve around this album back in 1990/91. It was my first taste of the Cocteaus and remains my favourite album. It's only 37 minutes long but by the time track 10 fades out you'll swear you've been listening to it for hours, such is the emotional sweep that pervades it and carries the listener along. For me, the standout tracks were Cherry Coloured Funk, Fifty Fifty Clown, Pitch the baby, Heaven or Las Vegas and Road River & Rail. However, after playing those ones to death I 'rediscovered' the other five songs and played them to death too. Ten years later this album remains one of my top two albums of all time (the other being Hats by the Blue Nile). Heaven or Las Vegas was the Cocteau Twins at their finest, though their next album, Four Calendar Cafe, was also sublime, though it marked the beginning of the end. Check out the predecessor Blue Bell Knoll too: the Coc's first foray into keyboard/sequencer dominated sounds and away from the murky guitar and echoes of their past. And if you're REALLY lucky you'll track down the CD single of Iceblink Luck, the single from Heaven or Las Vegas, which features two unreleased tracks on the 'b' side, both of which are gorgeous (and it's quite beyond me why they were left off the album.) Heaven or Las Vegas? Well it sure ain't Las Vegas.

Amazing album! Embodies that soundscape west/coast mid-west wave over of the US....the backbone of the mood of the 90's for me. Mix the influences of this band and the darker contemplative Slint Spiderland...you've defined the 90's. This album is pure magic in its ability to alter my mood to shoegazing happiness....I close my eyes and I'm in the most formative years of my life feeling the warm summer nights lying on the grass with my close friends, ciggarettes and endless chatter and laughter, staring at the setting suns pink/orange clouds, awaiting another endless night.

I mean the last decade, not this one, although this recording holds up surprisingly well, considering that it has been 12 years since it was released. I remember first hearing this CD coming out of the jukebox at Vezzo's in Philly, thinking "I gotta get this one." It's the perfect CD for whiling away a quiet night. Ms. Fraser's vocals are sensual and inviting, the muscianship is excellent, and the lyrics are just on this side of being understandable, if not totally coherant. The 'Twins left thier Goth constituants behind with this one, foraying ahead with a style that seemed to invoke My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth, while eclipsing both of them in content. While "Iceblink Luck" seems to be the breakout hit here, there are also the title track and the first track as well. An essential CD for anyone who loves all that can be music.

This is the Cocteau Twins album that it seems most people claim as their favorite (although my personal fave is the rapturous Blue Bell Knoll). Maybe I'm just thinking of the album cover when I think of this, but the songs really sound like light shows; flowing with burgeoning colored radiance and motion, a dance of light and shadows. Maybe the best example is the title song, which is also my favorite Cocteau Twins song (that's saying a lot!), sublimely pirouetting, piercing upwards and across the heavens like spotlights in the sky.

Liz's vocals on this album are really intriguing; you can once again recognize the occasional word, enough to know that the whole thing is really words and not just vocalizations. But her diction and pronounciation are done so that most of the words remain *just* out of reach, like a dream you just had but can't *quite* remember. It's kind of frustrating, actually! For instance, on the title song, she pronounces "sun" as "soon"--you can tell by the context: "...more brighter than the sun is to me".

The sound has a pretty rich low end, with pulsing electronics holding down the bottom, and Simon Raymonde's mellow harmonizations on the 6-string bass sliding along like water across rocks. Robin Guthrie's luscious 'harp-guitar' is used in kind of spare, subdued ways, weaving a web very simply and elegantly. The only drawback on this album is where it hits what seems to me kind of a dullish spot in the back-to-back "Fotzepolitic" and "Wolf In The Breast," which just don't seem quite as interesting as the rest. Plenty of other people love those songs, though, so maybe I just need to get with the program. The whole album is really subtle in a sweetly engaging way, and I should listen to it more often than I do; maybe then it'd be my favorite too!

This album is most definitely one of the most beautifully innovative and captivating musical pieces I have ever heard. Elizabeth Fraser's voice is magnificent and the music itself is fresh and mesmerizing. Everything about this album is entirely beautiful and rich. Fotzepolitic is one of my favorites............wonderful wonderful.