Augie March Watch Me Disappear (DO) by: Dan Osmolowski Thu:02-Oct-08 Label: Sony BMG Year: 2008 WB rating 67 out of 100

In popular music, anticipation plays such a pivotal role in moulding, or destroying, an artist’s career. When I first saw Augie March play the support slot for Grant Lee Buffalo in 1999, I anticipated very little. It was a few months after the Melbourne band released their debut recording, the Thanks For The Memes EP. As it turned out, Augie March’s performance on that night had a huge impact on me at the time – their music was so tense, visceral, unpredictable and unhinged, but it had this air of intelligence about it. While it wasn’t wholly evident at the time, later that year with the release of Waltz, it became clear that Augie March would owe a lot to Grant Lee Phillips and his men. Both songwriters shared a love for intricate wordplay and a passion for historical episodes and sweeping, but fractured, love songs. Glenn Richards would move his band away from the odd time signatures and brutal guitar play and toward the more graceful and ‘flowery’ tunes that have typified their career since their second EP.

Theirs is an intimidating back catalogue and one that has been universally praised, particularly for bringing back the craft of classic songwriting; that is, an attention to melody and lyricism. Very few Australian songwriters can claim to hold a candle to Glenn Richards’ ability to meld wit and beauty and turn it into one hell of a gorgeous song. The Australian public agreed in 2006, with Moo, You Bloody Choir, reaching an unprecedented 10th position in the popular Australian charts, riding on the back of their most singularly successful song, ‘One Crowded Hour’. That stunning song presented the perfect combination of clean, musical majesty combined with some jaw-dropping lyricism that struck a chord with young ladies everywhere who wanted it played as they walked down the aisle – it didn’t matter that perhaps they weren’t listening as keenly as they should have been to Richards’ barbed lament.

Some criticised Moo as being too staid and refined. Indeed it, like Strange Bird and Sunset Studies before it, was guilty of being slightly bloated and overly long. All three albums clocked in at no less than an hour and were desperately in need of some ruthless editing. But, unlike its predecessors (and save for the dull and unnecessary ‘Clockwork’) Moo, You Bloody Choir stands as their most consistent and rewarding effort; shearing most of the wilful, rickety and indulgent tracks in favour of more upfront, immediate song writing that lost none of its power to captivate. So, after an album that brought the band repeated sell-out tours and some rather unexpected chart success, how to follow up such a breakthrough for the band? Enter that word, anticipation.

Coincidently, Jubilee (album number four for Grant Lee Buffalo) was their most accessible and up-beat album. Unfortunately for Augie March, striking parallels to that band they supported all those years ago, Watch Me Disappear is also their least enjoyable. Ironically, it is also their most abridged.

The choice of Joe Chicarelli (The Shins, My Morning Jacket) as producer and the decision to record the bulk of the album in New Zealand at Neil Finn’s studio, signalled that album number four could move in a more pop-orientated direction. It’s Chicarelli’s handiwork that gives Watch Me Disappear a robust, ringing sheen that is a treat to the ears – the songs practically leap out of the speakers and his production compliments the band’s expansive sound. Edmondo Ammendola’s bass carries a resonance that has been missing on previous outings and Richards’ voice is beautifully recorded. Indeed, Watch Me Disappear carries some of his best-recorded vocal performances – he sounds relaxed, vibrant and brimming with confidence.

First single, ‘Pennywhistle’ and ‘Becoming Bryn’, in particular, are notably strong with Richards positively bursting with enthusiasm. His vocal delivery has reached a point, like Thom Yorke on last year’s excellent In Rainbows, where there seems little self-conscious input into delivering the narrative. The first few lines of the latter track are among his best work; “I dreamt I got a snakebite/just a dream that upon waking up my head felt light/my arm felt tight/ where the serpent struck a mark so faintly,” he sings with a cock-sure swagger and, in doing so, he reveals a man who could not be further removed from the painfully shy lad that, at one time, seemed embarrassed to acknowledge his widely-read disposition. “And if you think that I’m becoming the worst I can become/then you got another thing coming, baby,” he slurs in an accent that belies an Australian who now sings like he is invigorated by the change of Government that he openly sought.

Whilst the Australian identity was always a part of Augie March’s musical explorations, on Watch Me Disappear it seems even more pronounced. Richards’ accent is thick and swollen with pride and the band carries a magnanimous sound that mirrors the windswept desert of the album’s cover art. Lyrically, just as any Augie release, there is plenty to be found in the way of Australian references to time and place. ‘Farmer’s Son’ could even be the indie ‘Tucker’s Daughter’ – built with the same pop sensibility and nostalgia for the wide, open land. Hell, it even has a guitar solo.

That ‘pop’ word crops up frequently when listening to album number four; an album from a band that seems to be relieved to be free from the shackles of only playing to small, indie crowds and being labelled a critics and fellow ‘muso’s’ band. It’s as if the success of ‘One Crowded Hour’ lifted a great weight from around the band’s neck and gave them permission to write bright, propulsive popular songs. For the numbers that this applies to on Watch Me Disappear, such as the title track, ‘Pennywhistle’, ‘Becoming Bryn’, and ‘Farmer’s Son’, it is a pleasure to listen to the results. ‘Pennywhistle’ is the most blissful and resplendent the band has ever sounded. ‘A good feeling/yeah, it’s just a good feeling/it only happens now and then,’ cries Richards over chiming guitars, dancing accordion and bouncing horns. In his own words, it sounds like the band has been spat “out of the mouth of a black dog” and into the arms of joyous refrain. The way in which the ringing guitars build in the pre-chorus on the title track and how Richards wrestles it out of the grasp of Ammendola’s plundering bass line is subtle and wholly captivating.

But, for this brave journey into the heart of the popular, this is where the journey ends. From here on in, Augie March fall into some old, bad habits. ‘The Glenorchy Bunyip’ is a poor pastiche of the obligatory Augie rollicking rave-up the likes of ‘Just Passing Through’ from Moo and ‘This Train Will Be Taking No Passengers’ from Strange Bird. The reflective acoustic folk of ‘The Slant’ is pretty but falls well short of any of Richards’ previous outings in a genre that he could seemingly write songs to in his sleep. Speaking of which, an Augie March album seems to be incomplete without at least a few misguided adventures into tedium. Album closer, ‘The Devil Inside’ is plodding and suffers from a case of saccharine overdose. And I am still yet to determine whether ‘City of Rescue’ is some sort of inside joke that only the band get. The big issue here is that on the Augie March’s first three albums they were the minority number, in lengthy pursuits of over an hour each. Watch Me Disappear clocks in at just 44 minutes, of which at least 16 minutes is forgettable and about 12 minutes is competent. Not a good strike rate by anyone’s estimation.

Watch Me Disappear is a patchy album that lacks any real direction and fails to gain any impetus across its 11 tracks. For every great song that strives to push the album forward, another one (or two) mediocre efforts rear their ugly heads. It is a crying shame that such a heavily anticipated album that promised to deliver so much, to a band that is undeniably one of this nation’s finest, has fallen flat. It’s almost like the band are taunting us with such an inviting album title, throwing the gauntlet down to their audience to accept their offer. It’s a pessimistic thought and one that I would prefer not to have. Instead, let this be the stimulus for a great Australian band to get up off the canvas and craft the truly career-defining album that, since I first laid eyes on them 10 years ago, they have always threatened to deliver.