Note that this was written awhile ago... I assure you that by now I have listened to the whole album in one sitting. My opinions of the songs haven't changed though...
When I bought the new Augie March album I
was resolute. I was not going to get overexcited, I was not going to overhype
it in my head and expect too much. And then I heard Angels of the Bowling
Green. The beauty of this song left me gasping and feeling like weeping...
It's like the feeling of a balmy summer evening with friends, under the
stars with crickets singing merrily, it's like feeling that all is well
with the world, like... I don't know, there is NOTHING which can describe
what this does to me...
There are so many highlights, I don't know
where to begin. The rising sweet choirboy harmonies and catchiness of The
Offer? The loveliness of Heartbeat and Sails, or the melancholy, yet optimistic
There Is No Such Place? The gorgeous version of Tulip, or the extra-long,
extra layered Owen's Lament? Then there is my absolute favourite, Angels
of the Bowling Green. I have heard this song live, and simply overlooked
it. But listening to the track, I received a musical epiphany such as I
have never experienced before. And I gotta tell you, it feels gooooooood....
The lyrics, unsurprisingly, are absolutely
chockful of imagery and feeling - such as "Now you know what your sarcasm
really really means / It's the tearing with your teeth of the flesh from
the bones of your brother" from The Good Gardener, or my favourite, "In
the dumb city dawn I am senseless and drawn to the sun", in Heartbeat and
Sails. It seems like a shame to just select two, when there are moments
in every song that so wonderfully capture a moment in time, a feeling or
image, and phrases which you want to roll around in your mouth because
of their essential _rightness_. Whether it's lions on the roadside or unholy
spires, Sunset Studies is as much a painting as it is an album.
Admittedly, the album is long, at 76 minutes,
and I am yet to find myself sitting non-stop through the entire fifteen
songs. But the problem isn't that Sunset Studies makes you ache to skip
songs and get to the end of the goddamn thing; it's more that you find
yourself irresistably drawn to repeating songs. Over, and over, and over
again. Of course, you end up doing that with basically every song on the
album, which defeats the point, really... I might as well put it on endless
repeats...
Music at its best can be the meaning of life
itself - the right song can make everything okay, present you with
a gift, be the saving grace in an insane world. It is the universal sovereign
- a cure-all for woes, taking away the evils and wrongs of the world
and somehow giving that flash of eternity, of life and love and all that
is good... there might be no such place, but if I can get this close, I
think I'm quite happy indeed...
How on earth do you keep doing this to me,
Glenn Richards? It's a bit uncomfortable having my heart so firmly in someone
else's grasp... I like to keep control of it normally... but the album
sweeps all before it much in the fashion of a flash flood, taking the debris
- including loose hearts - from its path. Try as I might to rein it in,
try as I might to analyse and reduce it into something I can rationalise
away, I can't. It takes me to a different plane, a different world of endless
rightness and wonder... There are moments in time when all you ever wanted,
and all you will ever want, seem to meet and be possible... this entire
album is such a moment.
Sunset Studies is like a warm summer breeze
underneath a cloudless blue sky. If I was a poet, perhaps I would be able
to explain what the music and lyrics and songs do to me, but instead, I
shall have to just shut my eyes, rest my head and let myself float off
into the ether...
Damn you Augie March, I'll get you back. But
just wait until I've finished listening to this yet again...