We Are Augustines

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.