Album A Day: Augustana – All the Stars and Boulevards

I got the chance to see Augustana perform live in April of 2007 at an MTV-U show in Philly where they opened for Gym Class Heroes and Dashboard Confessional. Even though this album doesn’t always make it clear amongst the camouflage of adult contemporary sheen, Augustana are a damned good rock band.

All The Stars and Boulevards tries very hard to plant itself somewhere between the working man’s 90s rock of Matchbox Twenty or Train and the more balls-out, bombastic rock and roll of folks like Bon Jovi. On the one hand there’s the stop-start, in-your-face punch of “Hotel Roosevelt” or “Bullets”, where Dan Layus lets his slurred, attitude-ridden yarl (is that a word? Well, it is now) carry the tune to its emotional high points. But in contrast, there’s the longing for a new beginning in hit single “Boston” and the Goo Goo Dolls evoking guitar  and lyrical poetry of “Sunday Best”. But in both of these contrasts, there remains a common thread of dissatisfaction and yearning for more. Augustana clearly isn’t satisfied with where they are geographically (I’ve never heard someone be so disappointed in living on the west coast) or emotionally, and All the Stars and Boulevards is Augustana’s musical affirmation to themselves that they are in fact going to make it, in spite of the uncertainty posed in opener “Mayfield”. Musically Augustana dabble in roads already paved and polished, but emotionally and thematically they’re making their own way, and will be damned if anyone or anything stops them.

Augustana – Boston (Acoustic) (YSI)

==TJ==