The
third Augie March album is another landmark for the group, and for
Australian music. It all centers around songwriter and singer Glenn
Richards of course, whose fertile imagination creates these amazing
pieces of literature in song. Even more than the wonderful first
album 'Sunset Studies', 'Moo, You Bloody Choir' is littered with
melodies you know and love after just a few listens. In any one
else's hands they would be melodies that become songs you want to
sing along to, and do, but the Augie March experience isn't as simple
as that. You're never quite on solid ground. There are so many of
them, all the words elude you, as imagery is piled on imagery, playing
with your own imagination, shifting the focus. Every time you listen
you find something else to ponder and enjoy . In the past - 'Sunset
Studies' especially - Glenn could be described of taking you to
another time and place, but the landscape for these songs seems
to be closer, within our grasp, more a world we may share physically
as well as metaphorically with the songwriter. Maybe it just seems
that way because Glenn has let us know that many of these songs
were inspired walking the streets of Melbourne. But "ruralism" is
still at the romantic centre, as typified by the title of one of
standout songs, "The Cold Acre.' That's what farmers call the area
where nothing grows. But Glenn's song tells us about an old man
he saw, and the chorus says "My heart is a cold acre". Pow! A lyric
book comes with the CD, and under each song title Glenn gives us
some "clues" to what thoughts went into the songs, clues which in
themselves add to the mystery and wonder of what we end up hearing.
For all of that Glenn Richards is not alone in all this. The rest
of Augie March work really hard for him. You see that on stage as
they work through the complexities and intricacies on offer. With
this album they get rocker than we've ever heard them ('Clockwork'),
and as a singer Glenn more playful ''Mother Greer.' Augie March
as new to this whole adventure as we are, and you can sense them
warming to the task.
The
third Augie March album is another landmark for the group, and for
Australian music. It all centers around songwriter and singer Glenn
Richards of course, whose fertile imagination creates these amazing
pieces of literature in song. Even more than the wonderful first
album 'Sunset Studies', 'Moo, You Bloody Choir' is littered with
melodies you know and love after just a few listens. In any one
else's hands they would be melodies that become songs you want to
sing along to, and do, but the Augie March experience isn't as simple
as that. You're never quite on solid ground. There are so many of
them, all the words elude you, as imagery is piled on imagery, playing
with your own imagination, shifting the focus. Every time you listen
you find something else to ponder and enjoy . In the past - 'Sunset
Studies' especially - Glenn could be described of taking you to
another time and place, but the landscape for these songs seems
to be closer, within our grasp, more a world we may share physically
as well as metaphorically with the songwriter. Maybe it just seems
that way because Glenn has let us know that many of these songs
were inspired walking the streets of Melbourne. But "ruralism" is
still at the romantic centre, as typified by the title of one of
standout songs, "The Cold Acre.' That's what farmers call the area
where nothing grows. But Glenn's song tells us about an old man
he saw, and the chorus says "My heart is a cold acre". Pow! A lyric
book comes with the CD, and under each song title Glenn gives us
some "clues" to what thoughts went into the songs, clues which in
themselves add to the mystery and wonder of what we end up hearing.
For all of that Glenn Richards is not alone in all this. The rest
of Augie March work really hard for him. You see that on stage as
they work through the complexities and intricacies on offer. With
this album they get rocker than we've ever heard them ('Clockwork'),
and as a singer Glenn more playful ''Mother Greer.' Augie March
as new to this whole adventure as we are, and you can sense them
warming to the task.