At
a time when popular music seems more than ever to be deliberately derivative
of certain eras and bands, keen listeners pine for the original.
For the genuine expression of our collective human hearts instead of another
tired fashion statement. Even more rare than the elusive Real McCoy,
is one who's genuineness is rooted in authenticity—in a desire to paint
a clear emotional image through their sound. Such would be in contrast
to those who desire to be the next Radiohead.
From
humblest Melbourne, Australia, shine the peerless purveyors of this long-lost
art of beauty. 
They
are called Augie March. "Strange Bird," their latest
creation, is a dramatic, cinematic affair that warms and hypnotizes like
a hearth fire burning slowly on a cold Autumn night. Hazy and intoxicatingly
melodic, "Strange Bird" is a hyper-potent antidote to the banality of the
posing and posturing bands headlining today's modern rock review.
This album is the quiet girl shining from the inside out in the back of
the cafe, the one that gets in your blood by being inconspicuous and revealing
herself naturally, with an undeniable potency and individuality that sets
you reeling. This is an album to love.
"Strange
Bird" is a natural and impressive (and big) step forward for the now five-piece
(with the addition of multi-instrumentalist Kiernan Box) Augie March.
More cohesive than it's predecessor "Sunset Studies," "Strange Bird" is
like voyeuristically witnessing private emotional moments between confidants.
The vignettes portrayed song-to-song are incredibly, surprisingly, emotionally
involving. These songs seem to come from a shadowy, warm parlor of
a mixed-tempered poet. At times furious, at times plaintive, but
always richly arranged and sublimely melodic, "Strange Bird" is an exceptional
record of emotional and melodic complexity and intense beauty.
Much
like their 71 minute freshman full-length effort, "Strange Bird" offers
no low points throughout its lengthy, 14 track journey. Not a bit
is filler. As an album, "Strange Bird" is so cohesive that examining
the songs individually is difficult. Yet the standouts on this album are
many.
"The
Drowning Dream" is an airy and vespertine number, dipping into and out
of minor chords as the call-and-response vocals continuously propel the
song forward. "O Song," a heartfelt, candle lit ballad to the creative
muse, inches charmingly along like an amateur choir practice, with singer/lyricist
Glenn Richards speaking directions to the chorus, with only a harmonium
and a few sparse horns supporting the vocals. "Brundisium" is a near
epic. Crescendo-ing from the disorienting, tape-being-eaten, chamber
swirl of the opening bars, "Brundisium" heaves mightily like a storm tossed
ocean until it crashes to it's end in a full-on guitar and piano meltdown,
finally led out by a waning organ and piano line. "The Night Is a
Blackbird" glides gently on a melody as fragile as the tiniest icicle.
And then there is the shocking track "This Train Will Be Taking No Passengers."
"This
Train Will Be Taking No Passengers" careens frantically, swelling and surging
like a cross between a sienna-toned 1940 Warner Brothers cartoon disaster
and an early 20th century silent movie on fast forward. With rolling tack
piano and a huge chorus of voices, "This Train..." is barely 
held
to the tracks by an insane, constant drum cadence and razor-sharp lyrical
acrobatics, taking the listener through a landscape of damnation hued like
a Bosch painting coated in rust and soot. This is the sound of the
21st century speeding frantically, dangerously, towards its unchecked end
in a pileup of wrought iron and fire, poetry and sin. "We will adjust
to this new condition of living," warns singer/lyricist Glenn Richards
"like a man with his entrails now out him, not in, after certain techniques
of torture, accustoms himself to a new condition of living." Glenn
Richards lyrical power, his uncanny command of the English language has
always been more akin to the work of EE Cummings or Shakespeare than to
that of a pop lyricst, and his creations on "Strange Bird" are no less
awe-inspiring than those of the former.
"This
Train...," with its panicked pacing and rock 'n' roll swerves, propels
Augie March through uncharted sonic territory, and into further new parcels
of sound to be explored with an unparalleled delicacy. Much like the toy
explorer piloting the fantastic dirigible through the cinematic scene on
the album cover, Augie March glide dreamily into otherworldly places, and
reflect them back to us in absolute, purely unique musical creations.
Nothing is unexplored, yet nothing feels forced or deliberate. "There's
Something At The Bottom of The Black Pool" sounds like it was born in the
Wonka factory, the vocals riding in bubbles from the bottom of the mix
to the top. "Addle Brains," with much potential as a single, feels
like a fusion of the Vince Guaraldi Trio and the Byrds. The
understated cabaret jazz of "The Keepa" creeps as though riding on cigarette
trails through a nearly empty bar.
It
is rare that a band is capable of covering so much sonic territory without
losing it's signature "je ne sais quoi." Which is what makes "Strange
Bird" such a mind-blowing album. Whether truly rocking (something
new for this band) through the spookily cinematic "Brundisium," or the
aforementioned "This Train Will Be Taking No Passengers, " or slowly drafting
bare-hearted ballads like "The Night is a Blackbird," Augie March remain
distinctly Augie March. Their commitment to songcraft: to breath-taking
melody (they are unparalleled in this department), stunning and unexpectedly-wondrous
arrangement, lyrics of classic literary quality, and unabashedly superb
musicianship remains paramount. It is this reviewer's firm opinion
that there is no band anywhere today that is better at their craft, and
I daresay, as important, as Augie March.
In
a time where "originality" evokes the tired and heartless bleeping of Radiohead's
latest output, or the cold droning of deliberately experimental bands destined
for two-album careers, Augie March's originality feels like nothing short
of the genius. Like a Van Gogh for the ears, Augie March have created
a new expression of beauty, stripped of anything false or contrived, and
naked and new in its emotional purity. "Strange Bird," without evoking
it, is original in the way "Rubber Soul" or "Sgt. Peppers" were.
One first appreciates the genius of the songs, how they speak immediately
to your heart, before understanding cognitively how completely unique--and
potentially important--they are. In a mere two albums, Augie
March have established themselves as muscians--ne'--artists, in a class
of one.
