Date: 20/12/99
 
   Reviewed by KELSEY MUNRO (Sydney Morning Herald)
 
   You don't see too many bands taking their names from novels by Nobel Prize winners, but then Augie March is not your average band. They are producing some of the most carefully structured and beautiful songs in Australia at the moment, despite having not yet released a full-length album. Music from the second, critically acclaimed EP Waltz has earned the Melbourne four-piece comparisons with the late great Jeff Buckley - which are predictable with an electric guitar-high falsetto combination - but Buckley's influence may have been overstated in this case. Augie March have plenty of their own to offer.
 
   Their music is an interesting blend of an antique, sad kind of nostalgia, cast most charmingly in songs like Asleep in Perfection and Here Comes the Night; and a strong contemporary perspective. Singer Glenn Richards' guitar playing at times sounded like an old wind-up music box, or something from a gramophone record particularly when accompanied by the metronome tick-tocking through Owen's Lament, and a marching band style drumroll elsewhere. References to the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Edison and Helen of Troy appear in the lyrics. Some of the melodies had an eerie discordant edge reminiscent of a pianola reel.
 
   These antique elements are modified dramatically by the crazy post-OK Computer (Radiohead) noises squalling out of the second guitar. At times - like the intro to Moth Ball - the guitarist produced digital-sounding eeps and blips, at other times he drenched the mix in a wash of drilling, dissonant feedback. It's impressive stuff, which is in some ways merely cosmetic since the bones of the songs are already so good, but it deepens and texturises the music brilliantly.
 
   Richards' beautiful voice was a little rusty around the edges on the night, for which he apologised croakily. He missed many of the high notes, sometimes taking a deliberately lower path through the music to save his voice. The too-loud mix and room-shaking bass tremors often drowned out the words. Still, by the last few songs he'd found the higher registers again, the set climaxing with an intense delivery of Future Seal from their first EP.
 
   Unlike their extraordinary recorded output, Augie March's live performances can be a bit inconsistent, as Richards acknowledged. His voice is often fragile and some of the finer points of the songs were obscured by the blaring mix. But the moments when Augie March hit full stride were incredible and made it all more than worthwhile.
 

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