Sunset Studies [Import]

Editorial Reviews
Album Details
Japanese Version featuring a Bonus Track

Tracks:

Hole in Your Roof
Maroondah Reservoir
There Is No Such Place
Tulip
Tasman Awakens
Believe Me
Sunset Studies
Men Who Follow Spring the Planet 'Round
Angels of the Bowling Green
Heartbeat and Sails
Offer
Good Gardener (On How He Fell)
Here Comes the Night
Asleep in Perfection
Owen's Lament

Album Description

2000 full length debut album from the critically acclaimed Aussie rock act. BMG.

Album Details

Their Long-awaited Debut Album Released October 2000 in Australia.these Guys Are Fast Making a Name for Themselves as an Australian Equivelent for the Class of Jeff Buckley Or Radiohead. The Band Produced Or Co-produced Every Track on It. 'it's a Long Album, but You Can Expect to Be Still Finding Something New and Joyous in it Decades from Now' Says the Bands Official Web Site.so Far They have Nothing Released in the USA.

Customer Reviews:

Contemporary Sgt Pepper?.......2006-11-30

Without a doubt the most important and innovative offering for the ages, "Sunset Studies" belongs in any respectable music collection. Many have already spoken to the works that lie within, I simply want to confirm what others already know, that Augie March are one of the most important bands most will never hear. This is an album that you will return to again and again and never capture the essence of what your hearing.
So Sad that they can't seem to capture the attention of the US music labels, but then again, I don't think the Americans would seek it, cherish it, become enveloped in it.
Sgt Pepper for 2000's? Without a doubt!

Best Australian album ever made.......2006-03-10

Realised the other day that the review I wrote for this CD years ago was under the Japanese import version, and not this one. So I thought I'd move it where it belongs.

This album deserves way more than 5 stars, because it is indeed a cut above nearly all other music out there. This is, quite simply, one of the greatest cds I have ever heard, and the fact that it is a debut makes it even more astounding. Augie March have a sound about them unlike any other band. This music, and I mean this in the most positive of ways, sounds old. Like it is from another era - an era steeped in time and tradition, lost in the nostalgia of the mind. If a sepia photograph had a soundtrack, this would be it. The atmosphere the music creates to me gives off an aura of 30s/40s Australia. The music, and lyrics, are both so beautiful and haunting, and together create an immensely enjoyable experience. A lot of people laud the lyrics of Glenn Richards, and rightly so. Poetry in every sense of the word. Head to their website (augiemarch.com) and check the lyrics out, plus listen to their songs and even watch a few music videos.

Each and every track on this album is unique and beautiful in its own way. and if it is possible for a cd like this to have standout tracks, they are The Hole In Your Roof, There Is No Such Place, Men Who Follow The Spring Around, Here Comes The Night and Owen's Lament. But if you can get your hand on a copy, do so immediately. You won't regret it - this is music you can lose yourself in. Australia's best band and best-kept musical secret.

Australia's best kept secret. .......2005-04-13

Up until I heard this album, I was convinced of two things. One was that all australian music sucked and was completely unoriginal. (And I'm Australian). Since there's not so much money in the Australian music industry, major label money rarely gets thrown around on more original bands like Augie March.

Two, Australian bands were simply not capable of crafting something as sophisticated and as beautiful as OK Computer, Murmur, Moon Safari, Loveless, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, or any of the other modern classics we all know and love.

After hearing this album, I was proved wrong on both counts. This is simply a stunning, epic, haunting, quiet, peaceful, beautiful album that deserves to mentioned alongside any of the albums I just mentioned. And yet it's extremely different to all of them. If the likes of Radiohead and Doves are the masters of the wall of noise and dense arrangements, Augie March are the masters of quaint, calm, sparse arrangements - and yet they seem to evoke just as much emotion. It just goes to show that when creating music of haunting beauty, simplicity often works just as well as the bombastic, if not more so.

But the arrangements and sounds would be nothing without great songs. And this album has 15 classics. Glenn Richards' lyrics read like Wordsworth poetry, here are but a few examples.

"Blasted in appearance and a composite of fearful minutes frozen in a waking instant" (There is no such place)
"are you lit from the inside, is that why your teeth are bright?" (Tulip)
"You are the queen of the dustbowl, ex to the crier in a town of ashes" (Sunset Studies)
"Here sits a once good gardener/ pale as a shadow of a doubt/once a happy dweller of a garden good/ once a sleepy sinner/ once cast out" (The Good Gardener (on how he fell))
"What did the condemned say to the blessed when they met on the path? "Oh you take the low road and I'll take the high for a laugh." And if I'm nothing now it's because I've a gentle heart." (The Hole in your roof)

Seriously.

The fact that more people haven't heard this album is simply criminal. Do yourself a favour and buy it now, you won't regret it.

Just damn good.......2002-01-19

Ah, the benefits of being Australian:
1) The weather in summer
2) The fact that Augie March are an Australian band
3) You can combine points one and two together.

Despite having absolutely NO similarity in musical style, I class Augie March in the same category as Nick Cave based purely on lyrical prowess.
A good album to watch rain to this may be, but at the moment, it's baking hot, I can see the sea and it's playing on my stereo. Heaven

Sunset Studies - The Greatest.......2001-10-15

I have heard some great albums in my time, but Sunset Studies by little known Australian band Augie March is my favourite ever. It is 76 minutes of absolute brilliance that will just take you to that other place like only a few albums can. It took its time to grow on me, but after about six listens i was hooked for life. It is not for people with short attention spans. There is so much depth to the music on this album that it is imposible to take in all at once. The lyrics are incredibly thoughful and poetic and add to the amazing feeling this album gives. Every song on this album is different yet they all link in together to give it that real album feel. Over the past year every song from this album has been my favourite at some point in time, but now i can't decide because they are all so brilliant.
In conclusion, if you can handle music that is a bit slow or if you like semi-folk and singer-songwriter music Sunset Studies is an absolute must have album.