We Are Augustines

Single review

Book of James/Philadelphia

added: 1 Sep 2012 // release date: 3 Sep 2012 // label: Oxcart Records
reviewer: Paul Chapinal

Printable version

This has been a very good year so far for We Are Augstines: Sell out tours, solid performances at Reading and Leeds and a critically acclaimed debut album, Rise Ye Sunken Ships.

This double A side has two versions of Book of James and Philadelphia. Book of James is probably the more familiar of the two and is a quite beautiful, complex song. It�s big, with sumptuous, rolling melodies, but at the same time jaggers a little by being layered on off-kilter percussion. Taken with Bill McCarthy�s impassioned vocals, it�s oddly uplifting for a song dealing with homelessness and mental illness.

Philadelphia is a more straightforward rock song and a paean to (The City of Brotherly Love), their brackets. Springsteenish in flavour, if not quite as bombastic, it�s no surprise it's a live favourite.

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