Scottish indie rockers Glasvegas today released their new track My Body Is A Glasshouse (A Thousand Stones Ago), the second single from their upcoming album Godspeed. The song has been in the ether since 2014, when it was debuted in an acoustic gig at Glasgow’s Old Fruitmarket Concert Hall. The new version of the number – a trademark impassioned and pulsating ballad from the trio – is available to stream or purchase here.
Dear friends, ‘My Body Is A Glasshouse (A Thousand Stones Ago)’ is out now! GVxhttps://t.co/WzLzx7EWpf pic.twitter.com/bKnzAEIsSV
— Glasvegas (@glasvegas) December 4, 2020
Glasvegas first burst onto the scene with their eponymous 2008 debut album, which went on to sell over 300,000 copies in the UK. Their lyrics – rooted in gritty Glaswegian realism – were a breath of fresh air in the midst of an increasingly middle-class UK indie scene in the late noughties; while their unique sound – honed to perfection on classic numbers like Daddy’s Gone and Geraldine – blended the post-punk distortion of compatriots The Jesus and Mary Chain with a Spector-esque ‘wall of sound’ drenched in fuzzy nostalgia for 60s’ rock and soul.
Their subsequent albums – 2011’s Euphoric Heartbreak and 2013’s Later…When the TV Turns to Static – helped sustain the band’s dedicated cult following without replicating the commercial success of their first LP. Their fourth record Godspeed is due to hit shelves on April 2nd 2021, with the first single from the album – the melodic Keep Me A Space – enjoying a warm reception from fans on its release in August.
In a statement released on the band’s Instagram account in the summer, frontman James Allan posted a sweet letter to fans apologising for the long wait for new Glasvegas music. He said “It’s been 7 years since we released new music so, yeah, I guess an explanation why is overdue. I made the decision to record, engineer and produce our latest album free of any outside assistance, which for the bands momentum maybe didn’t seem like the safest path or on paper the most logical idea. But I couldn’t help listening to where my heart was telling me to go…All this aside, I’m sorry it took this long. All along the way I wished I could’ve done it faster and gave myself a hard time for not being able to. So now I am in a good flow – the place I hoped this would lead and I want to thank you for being patient.”
Allan also told NME that a narrative thread will run through Godspeed, which covers the events of a single night. He explains: “The character basically leaves the house at the beginning of the album and starts to drive somewhere. The character’s always inside the car but there’s parts of that drive that are like a daydream, not reminiscent but the way you are when you’re out driving somewhere, your thoughts can jump from one place to the next, and then you’ll maybe notice something that has a memory in real time.”
Glasvegas are due to take the new album on a fourteen-date tour next spring, culminating in a homecoming gig at Glasgow’s Galvanizers Rooms on May 28th. The full list of dates is as follows:
15/04/2021 – Picturedrome – Holmfirth
16/04 – Warehouse – Leeds
17/04 – O2 Academy 2 – Liverpool
18/04 – Asylum – Birmingham
20/04 – Garage – London
21/04 – Chalk – Brighton
23/04 – Sub89 – Reading
24/04 – Thekla – Bristol
25/04 – Rescue Rooms -Nottingham
27/04 – Gorilla – Manchester
28/04 – Foundry – Sheffield
29/04 – University, Students Union – Newcastle
28/05 – SWG3 Galvanizers Rooms – Glasgow
