Album Review: Augustines – ‘This Is Your Life’


This Is Your Life



Augustines round three, what to expect? Is it big? Is it bombastic? Is it beautiful? And most importantly is it as good as their first two?

Here’s the set-up. Extraordinarily talented band release two lauded albums, play live until they physically collapse and build expectation beyond any acceptable level for their next move. In any movie, this is where things come crashing down. It’s all very dramatic.

Augustines have never been a band to follow scripts.

This is Your Life’ starts as expected. Charging out of the gate in usual, rambunctious Augustines fashion. They’re one of ‘those’ bands that hold nothing back. They’ve done it many times before, and ‘Are We Alive?’ does it again. It’s big and brash, and reassures that you’re in safe hands. But here’s where things actually get interesting. They could deliver another batch of songs like their others and no one would complain. And they kind of do, but tantalisingly they kind of don’t.

It goes ooh and it goes aah in all the right places. It even yelps, bellows and pleads as triumphantly as anything else they’ve ever released. But it’s where they subvert this expectation that it makes you mistrust your own ears.

So, where there’s something powerful like ‘Landmine’, in which the Augustines use simple motifs and build to crescendo, there’s also ‘Running In Place’, layers of unexpected production, its structure and synth sheen like a lost Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel collaboration, the similarity in more that just name.

But 80’s synth sheen is not the only shift, it’s bigger than that. ‘May You Keep Well’ has a world music slant that would make Paul Simon proud and, for one very brief moment, it sounds like they are about to launch into Meatloaf’s ‘Bat Out Of Hell’. Instead it’s the very beautiful ‘Days Roll By’ (although now it’s out there they need to record ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ as a matter of urgency).

These forays into the varied world of 80’s production are exceptional. The flavourings can sound a little naive, but that’s because understanding music with other cultural touchpoints and measures is pretty much impossible for any band, but it brings an unknown quality, like getting a tattoo in a language you don’t understand, hoping that it says something inspiring rather than insulting to those who actually understand it.

The reality is all these extra flourishes give the music a wonderful, boundless euphoria. Augustines have always been grandiose and passionate, but now they’re almost spiritual. Which is not just a nice touch, but actually feels like a natural progression. And amongst all these twists and turns there’s still an unwavering presence and power on display. Nowhere more so than on the title track, which powers through its first two-thirds as impressively as anything the band have released before. Then you get to the big finish, and oh boy it blows things wide open, live it will take on a life of its own like nothing else on the record.



So, what you have is a band successfully pushing their sound both further and harder, on ‘This Is Your Life’ Augustines make it sound like a natural step for any band.

Yet they aren’t just any band, and this isn’t just any album – it’s the sound of progress.

(Dylan Llewellyn-Nunes)


Learn More




One Response

  1. Darryl (Ashburn, VA) 24 June, 2016