Guitar-wielding Melbourne combo in no hurry on ambitious debut.
Any debut album that spans 14 tracks and 70 minutes has both ambition and indulgence in mind. Welcome much-touted Melbourne quartet Augie March, who pitch their musical tent somewhere in the midst of Radiohead´s widescreen sprawl and a more lateral-thinking variation of Travis. These songs ebb and flow, in no hurry to get anywhere: their latest radio single, "The Hole In Your Roof" runs over seven minutes in its album-opus form, the closing "Owen´s Lament" more than eight. And this is a strangely hypnotic album, studiously crafted, brimming with dark beauty (especially the title track) and sombre introspection - but it´s not a record for people short on attention spans.
Jeff Apter