(SonyBMG)

Melbourne moodists write most accessible tunes yet

Certainly since last album Moo You Bloody Choir, Augie March have been edging towards a greater sense of immediacy in their songwriting. Moo… not only brought unprecedented mainstream success with the anthemic single One Crowded Hour, but was peppered throughout with pristine pop songs amongst the atmospheric soundscapes and dark, dramatic waltz-rock. Glenn Richards and bandmates go another step beyond on new album Watch Me Disappear, starting with the minimalist funk rock of Watch Me Disappear, later moving to the sweeping Big Star-esque pop of Farmer’s Son, and the shimmering atmospherics of Dogsday. City Of Rescue and The Glenorchy Bunyip, by comparison, are Augie March in pacey blues-rock mode. Whatever they try their hand at, Watch Me Disappear reveals a set of songs that you can enjoy in the same visceral, uncomplicated way that you enjoy a Fleetwood Mac song or a Cars song – and that’s the first time I’ve been able to say that about Augie, a band who have always been admired more than hummed along with. As a result, for some listeners Watch Me Disappear may lack the gravitas of some of their more sonically rich earlier material – it doesn’t scream ‘magnum opus’ like Sunset Studies did – but for this reviewer, Watch Me Disappear is one of the most unpretentious and purely likeable records of Augie’s career.

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MATT THROWER

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