Customer Reviews

Sunset Studies

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Realised the other day that the review I wrote for this CD years ago was under the Japanese import version, and not this one. So I thought I'd move it where it belongs.

This album deserves way more than 5 stars, because it is indeed a cut above nearly all other music out there. This is, quite simply, one of the greatest cds I have ever heard, and the fact that it is a debut makes it even more astounding. Augie March have a sound about them unlike any other band. This music, and I mean this in the most positive of ways, sounds old. Like it is from another era - an era steeped in time and tradition, lost in the nostalgia of the mind. If a sepia photograph had a soundtrack, this would be it. The atmosphere the music creates to me gives off an aura of 30s/40s Australia. The music, and lyrics, are both so beautiful and haunting, and together create an immensely enjoyable experience. A lot of people laud the lyrics of Glenn Richards, and rightly so. Poetry in every sense of the word. Head to their website (augiemarch.com) and check the lyrics out, plus listen to their songs and even watch a few music videos.

Each and every track on this album is unique and beautiful in its own way. and if it is possible for a cd like this to have standout tracks, they are The Hole In Your Roof, There Is No Such Place, Men Who Follow The Spring Around, Here Comes The Night and Owen's Lament. But if you can get your hand on a copy, do so immediately. You won't regret it - this is music you can lose yourself in. Australia's best band and best-kept musical secret.

All the Jeff Buckley/Radiohead comparisons are really horrible i think - all they do is trivialise the sound, and make Augie March sound like a bunch of copyists, which they're clearly not. I hear more of the Pogues, Tom Waits, Tom Verlaine and even Grant Lee Buffalo in the music than anything Radiohead ever did. There's no Jonny Greenwood in Augie March - nothing really comes to the front in the mixes. Guitars are quite restrained, and even the louder bits are not augmented by frantic atonal picking a la Mr Greenwood. Augie March do a great job sounding like a *band* - in the most democratic sense of the word.

Glenn Richards has a fantastic voice, but I guess anyone who sings the odd bar in falsetto these days is copying Thom Yorke, Thom himself obviously being the first to ever sing in falsetto.

For me, the lyrics are the true genius of the record - even when not set to music, they are some of the most affecting words I've ever read. 'The Good Gardener' is an excellent example with a delivery that really focussed the listeners attention to the words - "drowned and amoral/I pollinate the coral/reek of the deep where I've tended the waterweeds". And 'Owen's Lament' is possibly the saddest war song I've heard. Richards' lyrical style is obviously indebted to the writer of the novel the band named themselves after - Saul Bellow. If you've ever read one of Bellow's books, you'll know what I'm talking about. Very colourful characters and narrators, very personal themes set against a backdrop of a nameless location - 'angels of the bowling green', 'maroondah reservoir', and, spelling it out, 'there's no such place' - the songs seem to create almost a fantasy world that brings to mind a 1950's American small rural town (featured in films like Lawn Dogs and Virgin Suicides).

As far as I'm concerned, I'm prepared to put this album alongside some of the best in my collection - 'Good Morning Spider' by Sparklehorse, Lambchop's 'Nixon' and Television's 'Marquee Moon'. It's THAT good. Please check it out.

I have heard some great albums in my time, but Sunset Studies by little known Australian band Augie March is my favourite ever. It is 76 minutes of absolute brilliance that will just take you to that other place like only a few albums can. It took its time to grow on me, but after about six listens i was hooked for life. It is not for people with short attention spans. There is so much depth to the music on this album that it is imposible to take in all at once. The lyrics are incredibly thoughful and poetic and add to the amazing feeling this album gives. Every song on this album is different yet they all link in together to give it that real album feel. Over the past year every song from this album has been my favourite at some point in time, but now i can't decide because they are all so brilliant.
In conclusion, if you can handle music that is a bit slow or if you like semi-folk and singer-songwriter music Sunset Studies is an absolute must have album.

Up until I heard this album, I was convinced of two things. One was that all australian music sucked and was completely unoriginal. (And I'm Australian). Since there's not so much money in the Australian music industry, major label money rarely gets thrown around on more original bands like Augie March.

Two, Australian bands were simply not capable of crafting something as sophisticated and as beautiful as OK Computer, Murmur, Moon Safari, Loveless, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, or any of the other modern classics we all know and love.

After hearing this album, I was proved wrong on both counts. This is simply a stunning, epic, haunting, quiet, peaceful, beautiful album that deserves to mentioned alongside any of the albums I just mentioned. And yet it's extremely different to all of them. If the likes of Radiohead and Doves are the masters of the wall of noise and dense arrangements, Augie March are the masters of quaint, calm, sparse arrangements - and yet they seem to evoke just as much emotion. It just goes to show that when creating music of haunting beauty, simplicity often works just as well as the bombastic, if not more so.

But the arrangements and sounds would be nothing without great songs. And this album has 15 classics. Glenn Richards' lyrics read like Wordsworth poetry, here are but a few examples.

"Blasted in appearance and a composite of fearful minutes frozen in a waking instant" (There is no such place)
"are you lit from the inside, is that why your teeth are bright?" (Tulip)
"You are the queen of the dustbowl, ex to the crier in a town of ashes" (Sunset Studies)
"Here sits a once good gardener/ pale as a shadow of a doubt/once a happy dweller of a garden good/ once a sleepy sinner/ once cast out" (The Good Gardener (on how he fell))
"What did the condemned say to the blessed when they met on the path? "Oh you take the low road and I'll take the high for a laugh." And if I'm nothing now it's because I've a gentle heart." (The Hole in your roof)

Seriously.

The fact that more people haven't heard this album is simply criminal. Do yourself a favour and buy it now, you won't regret it.

A record of such epic scope and viscerally sonic landscapes is not a common occurance. Combine this with words that paint a picture within themselves and you have one of the greatest pieces of music ever put down. Close your eyes and watch as the record spins round on ancient gramophones in long deserted halls on a summers' eve such as these...

Sunset Studies is the one, true masterpiece album by Augie March. While more recent efforts including Watch Me Disappear and Moo You Bloody Crowd are finely crafted pop confections, Glenn Richards succeeds brilliantly on all levels with Sunset Studies. Clocking in at a generous, glorious 76 minutes this record is just so lovely from start to finish. At times dark and brooding, at times dreamy and wistful -- it's all bloody fantastic. While no tune is as immediately catchy as There's No Such Place it's all a true aural delight. I don't want to waste words trying to describe the experience of Sunset Studies. Just buy it. Even better than the terrific Strange Bird, you need to experience this for yourself, again, and again and again.

A strong rock debut from down under, exhibiting many surprisingly sturdy compositions but totally eluding complete solidness with many momentum-killing, strum-filling interludes- essentially sandwiching a bunch of forgettable ditties in between memorable music.

This is a phenomenal album, and just gets better with time and hearing. While there are a couple of immediately catchy songs - Here Comes the Night is my favorite of these - the others make a sum greater than their parts. This is a band to get to know and this CD is a good place to start. You can see videos of "There is no Such Place" on myspace and "Here Comes the Night" on youtube. Buy, listen.

Without a doubt the most important and innovative offering for the ages, "Sunset Studies" belongs in any respectable music collection. Many have already spoken to the works that lie within, I simply want to confirm what others already know, that Augie March are one of the most important bands most will never hear. This is an album that you will return to again and again and never capture the essence of what your hearing.
So Sad that they can't seem to capture the attention of the US music labels, but then again, I don't think the Americans would seek it, cherish it, become enveloped in it.
Sgt Pepper for 2000's? Without a doubt!

Far more so than their second album, Strange Bird, Sunset Studies is dreamy, ethereal, and definitely beautiful. Listen to the soft and spaced-out opener "Hole In Your Roof" to hear this in action. This song also happens to be my favourite from the album. But the other songs move through folk ("Men Who Follow Spring The World Round") and general jangly indie-folk ("Tasman Awakens" or "Heartbeat and Sails", another favourite). Every song is beautiful and Glen's lyrics are a cut above most other songwriters I can think of at the moment. Wordy and intellectual, yes, but this is a good thing.

Anyway, I highly recommend this album. If I continue I'll just keep using adjectives like "beautiful" and "ethereal" too much...