Making the band

The seven wonders that created Glasvegas's shimmering world

You would think bands would eventually run out of new combinations of retro styles to patch together for inspiration. Apparently we're not there yet. Case in point: the stunning, shimmering, and enigmatic self-titled debut from Glasvegas, a Glasgow outfit that many in the reliably hyperbolic UK music press are calling the best new rock band in the world.

Glasvegas, which plays a sold-out show at Great Scott on Sunday, mines the dust bin for a sound that marries classic American pop radio, surf rock, soul, and country with a towering wash of noise, shoegazer guitar feedback, and vibrating distortion repurposed from the dour '80s post-punk style of countrymen like the Jesus and Mary Chain. It's a breathtaking combination, and vocalist James Allan's breast-beating wail of a bog-thick brogue is a study in heroic vocal melodrama. Glasvegas' heady, downtrodden lyrics - subject matter ranges from religion ("Ice Cream Van") to prison ("Polmont on My Mind"), racially charged murder ("Flowers and Football Tops"), and childhood abandonment in their harrowing, heartrending first single ("Daddy's Gone") - push the band beyond the realm of romantic pop and petulant punk braying that you might expect from their list of stylistic influences.

Guitarist Rab Allan, who formed the band with his cousin James in 2003, elaborated on seven things that helped create the peculiar alchemy behind, OK we'll admit it, the best new rock band in the world.

"I think that there are a lot of good bands based in Glasgow, like Belle and Sebastian, Camera Obscura, and older ones like Aztec Camera, those kind of bands (see sidebar for more). But a lot of those bands don't come from Glasgow directly, most of them have moved here. Where we come from in the East End of the city, everyone is working class. But all those bands come from the West End, and there is quite a lot of money there. . . .

"There's never been a band from the East End of Glasgow that's been successful, ever. It's one of those strange things, like Manchester. Manchester has produced some of the best bands ever, and you can't explain it. It could be people looking for their way out. I don't want to sound arrogant, but I was always looking for something better."

"It was really organic the way [our sound] came together. Caroline [McKay] had never played the drums before, so what we had to do was basically teach Caroline drums from scratch. Because she only plays two drums it makes a lot of space for the music, so the guitars can be quite upfront."

"The obvious influence is Oasis. I saw Oasis and they made me want to be in a band. It's bizarre; they've asked us to do some gigs with them. I was star-struck when I met Noel Gallagher. I was a big fan of Echo & the Bunnymen as well, and I'm kind of friends with Ian McCulloch, the singer, now. He's like a mentor. There are people that I've met that are legends. Ian Brown from the Stone Roses. I haven't been let down yet! But there's still a lot of time left to be disappointed."

"He turned up at a gig in Glasgow, the same venue that he [discovered] Oasis in, and he basically loved the music, and we became close friends. He texted me this morning at 7 o'clock saying "I'm on a beach in the Indian Ocean listening to your album, and it's beautiful." He's helped the band out a lot. He came onboard when the band was still new, and because we were such big fans of Oasis, having Alan McGee tell us we're going to be the biggest band in the world . . . it can help!"

"I read an interview with James where the interviewer said [this juxtaposition] was like looking back to a state where you were young. I actually hadn't thought of it that way before. There's one song where James sings "liar, liar pants on fire," and another [lyric] is "twinkle, twinkle little star," and it's just one of those things that are in your head when you're young."

"Have you seen 'The Godfather'? It's quite like that. Denise is the head of the family and she tells us all what to do. It works though, to be honest. She has got her head screwed on really tight. It's funny, because she's never managed a band before, and what she's done for us has just been incredible."

"Obviously being in a band and doing what we do does change your personality, but not to the point where you become a different person. You know? We're back in Glasgow today, and my mum's come in today. Nothing changes, you can go away, but as soon as you come back . . . if you say something your mum doesn't like she'll slap you in the head, and you just go back to when you were 7 years old again.

"If you tell me all the good stuff [written about us], I'll tell you the bad stuff as well. I do think it's nice, but I don't believe what people write; I believe what people at the gigs tell me. People come up at the gigs and they say, "You've changed my life," all that stuff. And that means more to me if it's a fan. Someone who goes out and works all week, gets their money on a Friday and goes out and buys your album. That's special."

Glasgow rocks

For a city with a population of roughly 600,000, Glasgow has certainly exported more than its fair share of great rock bands over the years, including post-punks the Jesus and Mary Chain, new wave pop rockers Simple Minds, experimental psych-rockers Primal Scream, Brit-pop standouts Travis and Teenage Fanclub, and contemporary hit-makers Franz Ferdinand and Snow Patrol. With apologies to Manchester, England, we present a few of our favorite bands from the best music city in the world.

Aereogramme These cinematic hard rockers temper a scorching metal edge with symphonic beauty.

Belle and Sebastian This oversized collective has made soul pop and bookish, acoustic folk fashionable for a generation of cynical, broken-hearted mopes.

Camera Obscura With a brassy horn bounce and sassy, retro folk pop, the group has picked up the Belle and Sebastian mantle and ran with it.

The Cinematics Part of the post-punk, new wave revival of the past decade, they charge dance floors with a brooding, dark edge.

The Fratellis Aside from writing "Flathead," one of the best rock singles of recent memory, this trio puts the power back in power pop.

Mogwai Mogwai wrote the blueprint for dynamic, melodically-bombastic, instrumental post-rock that many bands have co-opted but few have matched in intensity.

L.O.