Billy McCarthy is one of the most resilient people I have ever known. I can come to no other conclusion after living with the debut from We Are Augustines (facebook/twitter) for a while. I haven’t even met the man, but for the curious, here is a brief summation of what he has had to go through over the last few years: when he was 19, his mother, a schizophrenic, committed suicide; in 2009, his brother, James, also a schizophrenic, did the same thing, hanging himself while in the apparent care of the hospital that was supposed to be treating him. From there, years of McCarthy’s life ‘just blended into each other’. He dedicated himself to writing – and while listening to Rise Ye Sunken Ships, there is a clear sense that he would have just fallen apart if he hadn’t thrown himself into writing songs.
This album was clearly difficult to make, and it’s similarly difficult to listen to once everything falls into place. The lyrics don’t have anywhere near as much effect until they are scrutinised, and then when everything clicks and you realise what is being said, it’s a harrowing moment of epiphany. There are some days I struggle to listen to this album, because it has had a profound effect on me. The raucous and often triumphant-sounding, no-holds-barred rock music is offset by the pain that led to its creation. McCarthy’s voice, in all its perfect imperfections, is impassioned and genuinely spine-tingling at certain points, such as during the climax of recent single ‘Chapel Song’.
Sometimes it sounds like he’s straining himself, but it is the power behind that voice that is most impressive. To be frank, to even be able to sing these songs is an achievement in itself. ‘You said, “Wave back, cause these are the best days of your life” /And I said, “I know, I can’t feel anything”‘ is an extremely important line on ‘East Los Angeles’, as it seems to sum up what the whole album is about. McCarthy and company were given a second chance after their old band, Pela, imploded, and now things have been taken further than they’d ever thought possible, but he’d probably be at home grieving if he wasn’t writing music and out on the road. He had a choice, and he made the best of it.
This album needed to be written; he knew that, and had started writing in the wake of his mother’s death, but he says that, back then, he ‘lacked the vocabulary and subtlety’. When he needs to address things directly, as on ‘Juarez’, he doesn’t hold back: ‘I’ve got a drunk for a mother, got a saint for a brother’. Likewise on the devastating ‘Strange Days’, where he admits: The days seem so strange/From my windowpane/She’s gone, gone/She ain’t never comin’ back again/So I got to turn the page.’ He needs to make a fresh start, but first, he had to tackle his troubled life head on, and he’s done that. A line’s been drawn under what happened, even if those scars will never truly heal.
We Are Augustines’s debut is already intense enough, so to fill it with Arcade Fire-esque huge arrangements would have made it overwhelming. The band know when to hit hard, like on ‘Headlong Into the Abyss’ and ‘Book of James’, but the more subdued moments are effective too; closer ‘The Instrumental’ is a case in point. Sometimes the best albums are the most cathartic – I made references to The Antlers’ Hospice in my ‘Book of James’ single review, and they seem much more appropriate in the context of the album. This is a stunning album, born out of grief and stunningly powerful. ‘Keep your head up, kid/I know you can swim/But you gotta use your legs,’ runs the chorus to ‘Augustine’. McCarthy’s kicking now, all right – and who’s to say where he’ll strike out towards next?
Rise Ye Sunken Ships is released on March 5th via Oxcart Records
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