| Author | Message | ||
     Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 117 Registered: 05-2005 |
I was raving about the Panics last year and now this year it'll be Augie March. Their new album "Moo you bloody choir" is sensational. Very even, not one bad song, and very Dylanesque with vocals sounding sometimes like Jeff Buckley. Can anyone recommend any other new (ie last couple of years) Australian bands? | ||
| Hardin Smith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 353 Registered: 03-2006 |
I've been reading about a new Aussie group called "Wolfmother", that's supposedly all the rage - I think they caused a bit of a commotion at SXSW...only trouble is, based on descriptions of them, it sounds like they suck! I think it would've been cooler if they'd spelled their name "Wulfmutha"...maybe thrown in a coupla umlauts... | ||
| Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 118 Registered: 05-2005 |
Hardin, unless you like a wussy, innner-city trendoid, "hey, they're cool NOW" Black Sabbath covers band, don't even go there! | ||
| Mark Leydon Member Username: Mark_leydon Post Number: 52 Registered: 05-2005 |
Wolfmother are crap. They sound like Uriah Heep circa 'Demons and Wizards' - only not as good. And get this - they are not being ironic. They actually write serious songs about Unicorns and stuff. The cover of their album looks uncannily like a Roger Dean poster circa 'Tales From Topographic Oceans'. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 315 Registered: 05-2005 |
Geoff, I agree with you about Augie March. The new album is great. It's their third though, and they've also released at least two EPs and a few singles (which would also be considered EPs anywhere other than Australia). I have all the albums, an EP and a couple of the singles/EPs. Almost everything is really good and a lot of it is great. Moo you bloody choir is the best yet though. They are currently playing dates with Dan Kelly (who is Paul Kelly's nephew, and proving just as talented as his uncle). That's a VFM double header I hope I get to see. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 353 Registered: 03-2005 |
taking down notes . . . . Augie March. I never did manage to find the Panics last year. Hey, if Wolfmother are so earnest in their recreation of crappy music might they make it into the "so bad it's good" category like Hawkwind? | ||
| david sigston Member Username: Futuretarded Post Number: 7 Registered: 04-2006 |
The Grates have been getting lots of airplay and good reviews on triple j, but I'm not that fussed with it. I'm not good with comparing bands but I guess they are similar to yeah yeah yeah's, just nowhere near as good. | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 378 Registered: 05-2005 |
from todays Popmatters - 9/10 be gads!! http://www.popmatters.com/pm/music/reviews/augie_march_moo_you_bloody_choir/ | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 360 Registered: 03-2005 |
That's a heck of a review. Only one tiny warning sign flickered. When the reviewer refers to "jazz/folk" that doesn't mean Augie March sounds anything like Van Morrison, does it? For me, Van Morrison is the third rail. | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 276 Registered: 08-2004 |
I can understand that Randy. Folk/Jazz is good though. | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 380 Registered: 05-2005 |
I have heard the first track from the Augie March album - one name came straight into my mind - Jeff Buckley. not to say the track was bad though, will give it a few more listens. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 326 Registered: 05-2005 |
I knew "jazz/folk" would be the phrase that would throw you Randy! (I read your post up til "Only one tiny warning sign flickered" and then went to the review to see if I could guess that warning sign. I guessed right! Fear not though. It's a good review, but the music is not jazz-folk. Jeff Buckley is close to the mark, but only in the singer's voice, not the music. The lyrics really are great; especially the scathing Mother Greer, which was the last song I heard on my iPod this morning. | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 388 Registered: 05-2005 |
Have to say that now I have heard the Augie March album all the way through I havent got a clue whether I like it or not!! The quality of writing is not in question, the arrangements are particularly inventive and the playing sometimes superb. But, and theres always a but, is it not a bit too polished? Geoff and Padraig, should I stick with it, and is the polished comment on the money? | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 330 Registered: 05-2005 |
Stick with it Kevin. They really are great. I would not call the sound polished though. It is well recorded by a good producer in a top digital studio - but that does not make it polished. Polished is when all emotion has been stripped in favour of perfection. Polished makes me think of bland, Level 42 type nonsense (bet that's the first time Level 42 has been mentioned here!). | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 389 Registered: 05-2005 |
Check this out Augie March fans. Its amazing what you find with a google search "One of the very best things about The Monthly magazine is the fact that Robert Forster, Australian music legend and member of the Go-Betweens, is the resident rock critic. This month he reviews Augie March's newly released third album, Moo, You Bloody Choir..... So what defines Augie March, and particularly so on this record? The lyrics of singer/songwriter Glenn Richards are verbose, literary and in some respects the antithesis of modern popular music. As Robert Forster writes in the April edition of The Monthly:The songs are huge. Whether Richards is writing out of sheer ambition, or just decided on a whim to write them this way, does not matter. They're done in CinemaScope, and in great detail." Well if its good enough for Robert!! Have any of you guys read Roberts review in full? | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 363 Registered: 03-2005 |
Padraig, I'm speechless. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 331 Registered: 05-2005 |
Randy, I'm not trying to claim any special powers (I'd have a John Edward-style TV show by now if I was claiming that); I just saw the phrase jazz-folk and thought it would put me off if I did not know the music already, and then assumed it was the same phrase put you off! | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 391 Registered: 05-2005 |
Padraig, I am really persevering with this lot given the acclaim bestowed by you and Geoff. I am now on my 3rd play of the album and I am no further forward as to if I like it. The best way I can put it is I want to like this album but my defence mechanism is beeping away and I cant put my finger on what is stopping me from liking it as much as you and Geoff (and Robert, or so it would appear)do. Forgive me, but one bands name keeps popping into my head - the dreaded Keane! Just something about the vocal melodies in the versus, although thankfully there doesnt appear to be any "anthemic" choruses. What I am trying to say I guess is that its just not edgy enough for my tatste.I wont give up though, I intend to give it several more listens because there is definetely "something" there, just dont know if its enough to reel me in. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 332 Registered: 05-2005 |
No, no, no; not Keane. Have mercy Kevin. Roy Keane should sue them over misrepresentation. Keane should mean commitment and crunching tackles; not music for filing clerks to drink half a shandy to. Really, Augie March are nothing like Keane. Also, the music is not the only part of a song that can have an edge - listen to the lyrics. | ||
| Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 123 Registered: 05-2005 |
I agree with Padraig, Kevin - stick with it and stop playing Keane in tandem with it! I particularly think "Stranger Strange" and "just passing through" are great. | ||
| Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 124 Registered: 05-2005 |
...and has anyone heard any of the Drones? I gave up on JJJ years ago because you've always got, as on any radio station, 95% crap and 5% good stuff. | ||
| Todd Slater Member Username: Todd_slater Post Number: 48 Registered: 01-2005 |
The Devestations - check em out. | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 401 Registered: 05-2005 |
Geoff, I assume you know me well enought to know that there is no set of circumstances that would possibly see me "playing" Keane - I may have been subjected to them through no choice of my own  Also, you highlight "just passing through" as well as "stranger strange", is that because you think that both sound like Keane, ever though I only mentioned "stranger strange? | ||
| Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 154 Registered: 05-2005 |
By the way, have you people heard Youth Group and what do you think? | ||
| Hugh Nimmo Member Username: Nemo Post Number: 58 Registered: 07-2005 |
Geoff, I picked up a copy of Skeleton Jar by Youth Group when it first came out after hearing the track 'Shadowland' which I liked a lot. A good album and a promising release but perhaps not the all out classic some reviews would have you believe. There are some really excellent songs on it ( Lillian Lies, Baby Body, Piece Of Wood, The Frankston Line, Skeleton Jar and See-Saw together with Shadowland which is a superb opener.) It does however contain a few weaker songs which do not particularly appeal to me. I am thinking of Last Quarter, Why Don't Buildings Cry?, Drowned and Rosie and The Sea. It's not that they are particularly bad but they do lessen the overall impact of the album for me. Overall, I liked it enough to place an order for the new one without hearing anything from it. At the same time I also took the opportunity to place an order for their debut album ( Urban And Eastern ) which has just been made available again after having been 'Out Of Print' for some considerable time. I have the Australian release of Skeleton Jar. It contains the track Rosie and The Sea which was replaced by Someone Else's Dream on the U.K. and U.S.A. releases. |