Heaven or Las Vegas

Fraser and Guthrie's daughter Lucy Belle was born in September 1989, and the album came out on her first birthday. During the sessions at their new studio by the Thames, part of Pete Townshend's Eel Pie complex, Raymonde's father died, and Guthrie's drug use, which Raymonde said got completely out of hand by the end, left him in the studio less. Raymonde's playing came forward as a result, and many of the effects were made on guitars rather than synthesizers, some by accident. Raymonde said they never once demoed or wrote songs in a conventional way. Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires is his song about his father.

The songs sound more open than before, and some of Fraser's words surface in plain English. Guthrie described the listening party as forty minutes of silence and open mouths. The cover is a long exposure of Christmas-tree lights.

Reception

It reached seven in Britain, went gold, and sold over two hundred thousand copies in America by 1996. Vox gave it ten out of ten; Pitchfork's 2014 review gave it ten again and called it the best album of their career. It is on Rolling Stone's 500 greatest albums, topped Pitchfork's list of the best dream-pop albums, and was named a modern Scottish classic in 2022. The band left 4AD soon after, partly over conflicts with the label's founder Ivo Watts-Russell.