As Glasvegas frontman James Allan was recording “Change” — a  moody piano dirge on the band’s new “Euphoric///Heartbreak///” sophomore set that features a spoken-word interlude from his mother,  he admits to hearing “a subconscious voice shouting ‘This is not the most normal thing to do!’”

But he expanded the concept by putting mom — Elizabeth Corrigan — on the CD cover as well, in a circa-1990, wall-projected photograph he’s pictured viewing in a darkened room.

“With this album, I was keen to throw myself in the deep end,” Allan says. “And musically, I like unique things, and things that are very heartfelt. So I can’t imagine ever making an easy record, to be honest.”

The otherwise-chiming “Heartbreak” — which the quartet will premiere in The City today — was particularly taxing.

Allan, 31, doesn’t shy away from the truth: His mother gave him life, and she might just have saved his life, too.

After rocketing skyward with 2008’s eponymous debut, Allan, like Icarus, began a wing-melting descent.

First, on the eve of Glasvegas playing the Mercury Prize ceremony in 2009, for whichthe band had been nominated, the Scot vanished for five days, eventually turning up in New York City.

Bad sign No. 1. More kept coming.

Soon, the hard-partying Allan had bragged about his cocaine consumption in the press, overdosed at the 2009 Coachella Festival and  actually passed out in his sunglasses for an entire magazine photo shoot.

With his stepfather Dean and sister Denise as co-managers, the truth inevitably reached Corrigan, who tearfully confronted him at home in Glasgow one fateful morning.

“It was important that that happened, because I had to speak to her about the way I’d been living my life,” he says. “Only after that could things move forward. She reads everything about us, so there was no hiding place for me.”

His mother’s advice echoes her dialogue in “Change”: “It’s never too late to change ... but before you change for me, change for you.”

Allan says the talk convinced him “that rock ’n’ roll and press and selling records are not worth it for me, if my mother is upset. She comes before anything, rock ’n’ roll included. So I don’t take cocaine now — even the thought of anything going up my nose makes me feel quite sick.”

Like any good son, Allan understands that Corrigan still worries.

“So I really make an effort to get a shave, put some after-shave on and go up to see her,” he says. “Just to make sure she knows that I’m cool, that I’m in good shape and I’m sane.”

IF YOU GO

Glasvegas

Where: Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell St., San Francisco

When: 9 p.m. today

Tickets: $20

Contact: (415) 885-0750; www.gamhtickets.com