Dreampop essential! By the time Cocteau Twins released Heaven Or Las Vegas, they had been perfecting their singular sound for nearly 10 years, recording exclusively for Ivo Watts-Russell’s highly respected indie powerhouse 4AD. After the fallout of goth & post-punk, 4AD became a buy-on-sight label for fans of lush & dreamy indie pop sounds, largely due to the Cocteaus ' near-perfect run of albums in the mid to late 80s. On Heaven Or Las Vegas, Liz Fraser’s uncanny voice and lyrics are higher in the mix and more intelligible than ever before, and Robin Guthrie’s masterful, proto- shoegaze guitar playing and Simon Raymond’s atmospherics fully distilled, culminating in this most critically and commercially successful record of their career. Watts-Russell called it his favorite record in the entire 4AD catalog “by a long shot”, and while it may be a bold statement, we’re inclined to agree with him. This should be in any record collection, period. Recommended. Instead, they turned all that turmoil and uncertainty into the best album of their career. Heaven or Las Vegas explodes in Technicolor from the first melty guitar chords on “ Cherry-Coloured Funk”. Every note sounds like a new and richer shade of indigo and scarlet and violet than the previous one, and it doesn’t fade until closer “ Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires” descends into silence. If Blue Bell Knoll is spare and ambient, Heaven is supersaturated: lush without being vulgar, luxuriant without being indulgent. Tellingly, some lyrics bubble up to the surface, often loaded with personal meaning: “cherry,” “perfection,” “burn this madhouse down.” On a song called “ Pitch the Baby”, ostensibly written for—or at least sung to—the couple’s infant daughter, Fraser repeats, “I’m so happy to care for you, I only want to love you,” as a sweet lullaby. We may not always be able to understand her lyrics, but that doesn’t mean they’re not important. In fact, her lyrics would never be more vital or confessional than they are on Heaven or Las Vegas, which lends the music added emotional and conceptual heft. On the other hand, its general dismissal by critics and fans as a lesser Cocteau Twins album may have less to do with the album itself and more to do with the fact that it is bookended by better and more ecstatically creative works. There are moments of disarming beauty on Blue Bell Knoll—the melting keyboards on “ Cico Buff”, the lush vocal layering of “ Athol-Brose”, the shooting-stars opening of “ A Kissed Out Red Floatboat”, Raymonde’s syncopated bass trudge of “ The Itchy Glowblo Blow”, the whatever that is at the end of “ Spooning Good Singing Gum” (I think it might be a herd of lovelorn goats playing saxophones). But the standout is “ Carolyn’s Fingers”, which would become the Cocteau Twins’ first American single. The band never utilized its rhythm section to better effect: Against Guthrie’s crisp guitar line, that churning momentum pushes Fraser’s vocals to greater and greater heights, her unexpected swoops and eloquently rolled consonants creating a bewildering indie-pop aria.

Putting my heart on the table, I admit this was never my favorite Cocteau Twins album (that honor is reserved for Treasure). However, I know that for many a Cocteau Twins fan, Heaven or Las Vegas is the popular peak. It was their final for the 4AD label (their record company home in England) and it reached number seven in the UK, their highest charting release. a b "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. 22 September 2020 . Retrieved 22 September 2020. This was the last Cocteau Twins recording to appear on the 4AD label, and was simultaneously released on Capitol Records in the United States. The 30 Best Dream Pop Albums". Pitchfork. 16 April 2018. p.3. Archived from the original on 24 April 2018 . Retrieved 24 April 2018. The album title was suggested by Lawrence (Hayward) of Denim/Felt, who liked the line from the song of the same name.Phillips, Shaun (15 September 1990). "Heaven scent". Sounds. Archived from the original on 5 August 2021 . Retrieved 28 January 2023. EDIT: I still stand by much of what I've written above, but this does sound way better through some headphones rather than speakers in my experience. The album master on vinyl is very bassy and sounds bloated on my stereo system, but through some nice bright headphones, it's manageable. If you're dead set on getting a quality copy of this album, go for the original pressing or even the CD.

Heaven or Las Vegas peaked at number seven on the UK Albums Chart and number 99 on the US Billboard 200, [3] [4] becoming the band's most commercially successful release. It eventually sold 235,000 copies by 1996, according to Billboard. [5] The album was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, [6] and was voted number 218 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. [7] In 2020, Rolling Stone listed it at No. 245 in its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. [8]a b c Deusner, Stephen (16 July 2014). "Cocteau Twins: Blue Bell Knoll/ Heaven or Las Vegas". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 27 October 2022 . Retrieved 16 July 2014. NME named Heaven or Las Vegas the 28th best album of 1990. [36] Retrospectively, The Observer listed the album as the 97th-greatest British album ever made. [37] In 2017, NPR listed Heaven or Las Vegas 138th of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women. [38] In 2018, Pitchfork ranked it first on its list of the 30 best dream pop albums. [39] Road, River, and Rail” was included on the two-disc compilation that accompanied the 2013 book, Facing the Other Way: The Story of 4AD, by Martin Aston. a b Aston, Martin (October 1990). "The Cocteau Twins: Heaven Or Las Vegas". Q. No.49. Archived from the original on 20 June 2000 . Retrieved 15 October 2018. Victorialand is a beautiful album and far from poor. Sure it works to a slower pace than its predeccesors and could be accused of being slightly one dimensional but it sounds so spare and lovely. Simon Raymonde's return for Blue Bell Knoll gave them fresh impetus and their finest album but there was some great releases around those records. The Echoes In a Shallow Bay/Tiny Dynamine ep's (which you can get coupled on one cd making them effectively an album between Treasure and Victorialand) are superb. Also the single between Victorialand and Blue Bell Knoll, Love's Easy Tears/Those Eyes That Mouth is brilliant.

Riley, Danny (1 August 2014). "Cocteau Twins – Blue Bell Knoll/Heaven or Las Vegas (Reissue)". The Quietus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2018 . Retrieved 8 August 2017. Colin Larkin, ed. (2000). All Time Top 1000 Albums (3rded.). Virgin Books. p.105. ISBN 0-7535-0493-6. Heaven or Las Vegas was listed as the 90th best album of the 1990s by Pitchfork, who complimented Fraser's more direct vocals and the album's complex songwriting. [33] It was also included in the 2008 edition of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, [34] and in The Guardian's online edition of a similar list. [35] It was considered the band's strongest work since Treasure by AllMusic reviewer Ned Raggett, who called it "simply fantastic" and successful in creating "more accessibility". [23]Music Direct reserves the right to change the terms of this promotion or discontinue this offer at any time. One of the great things about hearing this album in high resolution now is that I can now crank up the music fairly loudly and it doesn’t become a super harsh, nasty listen. In fact, it takes on a fairly nice warmth as I push my little Bellari tube pre-amp a bit on this one. Simon Raymonde’s bass lines pop out of the mix in a percolating sort of way while Elizabeth Fraser’s voice reaches for the stratosphere. Not sure who is playing the drums on this — none listed on the credits, but it sounds like a live drummer, although they could be sequenced — but, whatever / whomever, the drums sound very nice on this too.

There was salvation in [Fraser's vocals and lyrics] too, in terms of helping save her relationship with [Guthrie], the joy of bringing a baby into the world that they could love. It did give them a new lease of life, and it gave the album an energy and vibrancy. It was very easy to make the music. [10] Raymonde wrote "Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires" the day after his father's death, [12] and Heaven or Las Vegas straddled the two themes: "writing songs about birth, and also death, gave the record a darker side that I hear in songs like 'Cherry-Coloured Funk' and 'Fotzepolitic'". [10] Despite being in a "very good space musically" and describing the recording process as an "inspirational time", Raymonde said: "It was trying to mask all the other shit that was going on that we didn't want to stop and think about for too long". [12] In a retrospective of 4AD by music journalist Martin Aston, he noted that Fraser named the album Heaven or Las Vegas as "a suggestion of truth versus artifice, of music versus commerce, or perhaps a gamble, one last throw of the dice". [18] Actually, the drum machine on "head over heels" doesn't sound too bad because they ran it through a bunch of effects. It sounds a lot worse on "treasure", IMHO, but again, doesn't bother me too much there. a b c "Heaven or Las Vegas is 26 today". Form. 17 September 2016. Archived from the original on 20 September 2016 . Retrieved 5 August 2017.Martin, Aston (2013). Facing the Other Way: The Story of 4AD. London: HarperCollins Publishers Limited. ISBN 978-0007489619. OCLC 853505613. The working title of the song “Heaven or Las Vegas” was “Crispy Fiver Blue,” a joke name that Melody Maker had included in a lampoon of the band’s tendency toward eccentric titles. a b Lindsay, Cam (10 July 2015). "An Essential Guide to Cocteau Twins". Exclaim!. Archived from the original on 12 June 2015 . Retrieved 8 August 2017. Even as the band soared commercially and creatively, personally they suffered. Between the release of Blue Bell Knoll and the recording of Heaven or Las Vegas, Fraser gave birth to the couple’s first child, a daughter, yet Guthrie remained deep in the throes of drug addiction, which made him paranoid and angry. Raymonde mourned the death of his father. Suddenly the stakes for the Cocteau Twins seemed impossibly high. “Fraser named the album Heaven or Las Vegas [as] a suggestion of music versus commerce, or perhaps a gamble, one last throw of the dice,” Martin Aston writes in Facing the Other Way: The Story of 4AD, implying that the band was close to imploding. Bambarger, Bradley (6 April 1996). "Radio Climate Could Boost Capitol's Cocteau Twins". Billboard. Vol.104, no.14. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. p.14. ISSN 0006-2510 . Retrieved 4 August 2017.