Send "Augustana " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Sputnikmusic |
And Augustana sound awfully bored with themselves, too. Layus has more of a country, weather-beat tone, truth be told, and on record it doesn’t fair well for Augustana at all. Late in the self-titled affair, “Hurricane” ruins its welcome merely one minute into its five-minute length, Layus drawing out another of the album’s unspecified and bored vocal melodies that can’t root itself in the ears quite well enough to warrant later returns. “Burrowed Time” is as slow going as a Sunday afternoon in the spring time when your family does little more than sit around all day. You can imagine the band outside of a farmhouse of some sort, plucking acoustic guitars, with Layus’ legs propped up on a stool, singing out of the corner of his mouth lazily. Whatever happened to the Augustana in the time since 2008’s Can’t love, Can’t Hurt has seemingly aged the band twenty years, has aged its target audience twenty years or more, being of dull hearing, too, and has noticeably reduced the quality of the band's sincere contemporary songwriting. The lyrics often stretch here from painfully ambiguous to cliché. Run through the first five tracks, paying careful attention to the hook-heavy “On The Other Side” that is detoured and driven clear into the ditch by cliché after cliché: “I wanna feel you love me at the speed of sound,” is a notable favorite - thanks, Coldplay. Augustana stress that this is the band “raising the bar for [itself]” and “upping the stakes”, yet this is arguably its weakest album so far: it just sounds more consistent sonically than 2005’s All the Stars and Boulevards and 2008’s Can’t Love, Can’t Hurt, but that’s because it’s just consistently more bad, not good in the least. The best song, by far, is pre-released cut “Shot In The Dark” that was played on alternative rock radio months before Augustana’s self-titled release. What gives the song strength is primarily the fact that it isn’t held back by the faults of the rest of the album: the hook is strong; the lyrics are on par with the radio hook supplied; and Layus changes his tone in the chorus, more than a little. You know, he actually sounds sincere when he says, “baby, we still have a shot in the dark”. The same can’t be said for the rest of the album, though. No, not at all: “Counting Stars” is “Boston” without its youthful urgency and a hell of a chorus, i.e. nothing, and first proper single “Steal Your Heart” is destined to never chart anywhere, the band’s relative popularity aside, with its weak forgettable instrumentals and Layus’ broken delivery on full display to be heard in the mix. Augustana sound bored and weather-beaten to death on their self-titled, and if this is how the true Augustana sounds, then it’s fair to say that they're far and away past their prime and could consider calling it quits....full text |
| Mvremix |
| Part of the reason I started writing album reviews was to discover new music that I would either not have the opportunity to listen to, or would not ever find it on my own. Sometimes you hear something that strikes a chord; be it nostalgic, harmonic, or reminiscent, the songs just make sense to you. The perfect example of this kind of album is “Augustana”. Imagine Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty had a child, then Bob Dylan adopted said child during its formative years. The music eventually produced by this kid?That sound that makes you feel so good, so wistful, so happy? That’s Augustana’s latest self-titled album. San Diego based Augustana started their journey back in 2002, but finally released their first successful album in 2005 (you may remember their single Boston). Their newest is their third release, and just chock full of goodness. Their brand of folk rock is instantly recognisable by singer Dan Layus’ heart wrenching alto pitch. The opener is a banger; try listening to “Steal Your Heart” on a sunny day and not throwing your arms out and looking at the sky. “Borrowed Time” has a slower tempo one might expect in a Neil Young track, and Shot in the Dark has the aforementioned Petty stamp. I personally would love to hear “Hurricane” live in an acoustic set; and it instantly brings to mind the Wallflowers’ style of alt-country....full text |
| Music |
| Self-titled albums that fall later in a band's catalog tend to signal a fresh start. Such is the case on Augustana's self-titled fourth album. Augustana has always been a rather vanilla piano driven pop outfit, but they step their game up on their fourth album by taking their sound backwards a bit for an collection of songs that would feel right at home in the guitar pop days of mid-eighties radio. The piano and string arrangements that prettied up their ballad leaning tunes in the past are largely absent here, with a few notable exceptions, but fans are unlikely to complain. The album opens with the ragged gem "Steal Your Heart", a stark contrast to the lush, overstuffed material of the band's previous releases. A heavy pounding beat and itchy guitar shimmering over distant chimes sets a more sparse backing, giving front man Dan Layus' soaring melodic voice an opportunity to drive the song. He proves up to the task with a vocal that manages to sound both worn down and soulful at once. From the heartbroken vocals and flickering guitar hook of "Someone's Baby Now" to the strutting riffs and Bryan Adams vibe of guitar pop gem "Wrong Side Of Love", the more guitar focused sound works wonders with their pop sensibilities to deliver some of their catchiest work to date. They take a few musical chances on the album that fall flat, with the rustic folk combo of mandolin and whining lap steel on "Borrowed Time" not quite hitting the mark. The sudden burst of synth and skyward backing vocals opening "Shot In The Dark" leave you momentarily cringing, but they quickly dissipate for a deep, drippy bass line where Layus' slightly raspy, comfortable vocals and the soaring gallop of the hook work exceedingly well. Augustana only fall back on their old piano and string balladry once, on the fluffy "Counting Stars", where the Layus' warm vocals and the lightly strummed acoustic guitar save it from corny love song territory, despite the cheesy background vocals....full text |
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