Stream: Augustines, ‘Cruel City’

Kevin Bronson on September 30th, 2013

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We Are Augustines’ 2011 debut “Rise Ye Sunken Ships” was a bloodletter of an album peppered with vein-popping indie-rock anthems that embraced the human condition for all its wonder and warts. Now doing business as merely Augustines (their original choice for a name before a trademark dust-up forced them to append “We Are”), the trio has relocated from Brooklyn to Seattle. And now singer-guitarist Billy McCarthy, bassist-singer Eric Sanderson and drummer Rob Allen are preparing their follow-up album, a self-titled affair due in January. If the first single “Cruel City” is any indication, Augustines have done nothing to diminish the sonic or emotional scope of their music; McCarthy, who played with Sanderson in the underrated indie-rock band Pela (2004-09), remains a howler to be reckoned with, intense for reasons beyond showmanship. Is “Cruel City” a kiss-off to Augustines’ former home bases? We can’t quite sort it, truthfully. Gonna have to turn it up.

||| Stream: “Cruel City”