FilboidStudge's Full Review: Heaven or las Vegas by Cocteau Twins
The music made by angels in Heaven sounds like Dogstar next to "Heaven Or Las Vegas." Considered widely to be the Cocteau Twins finest and most gorgeous hour, this 1990 album saw them take their whimsical, pure tones to new, polished heights of accomplishment.
Robin Guthrie's guitars sound warmer and more rounded than before; Liz Fraser's voice is even more expressive than on previous albums; there is a definite sense of the band having totally gained control of their recording environment. They're no longer producing wispy ambient goth-mumblings but structured, to-the-point four minute blasts of pure joy.
It was around 1990 that the Cocteaus started to realise the potential of the album as a concept; this album and those after it can be played through in their entirety, and come at you like novels instead of a collection of short stories. What's more, the band's favoured waltz-time beats are less in evidence here.
Fans will have noticed that from this point on, the band placed the song with the most commercial potential at number three in the track listing. Another song with a big hook would be placed at number five, whilst the tenth and last song would always be a slow-starting affair which would burst into sudden joyful celebration.
The third track on "Heaven Or Las Vegas" is 'Iceblink Luck.' Probably the band's most famous song, it's a soaring, life-affirming bird of prey which swoops out of nowhere and builds a lovely nest around your head. Liz Fraser no longer sounds like the shy gothchick sitting in the corner drinking snakebite; instead, she sounds like the universal earth mother; all-knowing, fearless and frollicking.
Amazingly, it's possible to make out whole lines, too. Liz still obviously loves the soundclash of various outlandish juxtapositions of vowels and consonants, though, and she's still going to make words up if none exist to describe what she feels.
'Heaven Or Las Vegas' is the fifth song on the album. It starts deceptively, with an ambling arpeggio and Liz's brash voice wibbling over it; then, SHAZOOM!! It explodes into beauty, with Fraser singing for her life, like the Trio Bulgarka at gunpoint. It's enthralling to compare this loud, full-throated YAWP with the lily-livered whispers on "Garlands," the band's debut album.
Another sparkling gem is 'Fotzepolitic,' another exploder which shoots into a stream of warm, re-assuring dreampop. Liz sounds like she's just woken up and is recounting a scary dream, looking for comfort and attention. Her vocal lines, multi-tracked back in the mix, sound like a mighty Greek chorus.
'Road, River and Rail' is also heartbreaking, if more traditional in structure. Even though the words may remain undeciphered, Fraser plays a definable character in each of the songs; here, she's like a woman waiting for a lover to come home from war, singing a simple, heartfelt song of love and longing.
Final track 'Frou-Frou Foxes In Midsummer Fires' actually lives up to its outlandish title. Highly evocative, it begins quietly before the Greek chorus arrives again and lay their loving hands on it, transforming it in an autumnal haze of light and breeze.
I discovered this album a couple of years after it had been released. It was summer; light was streaming through the skylights and lasering beams through the incense smoke in a tiny shared student flat in Belfast. Then, someone put on "Heaven Or Las Vegas" and everyone was spellbound; as I sat there drinking tea, I knew I had been touched. For the first time ever, I fell in love with a voice.
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