Augustino: One Day Over

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * *)

It's nice timing on the release of this one. Not just in the name of the Auckland quintet but it's high time someone had a go at being "the New Exponents". There've been various attempts of late at creating a people's pop-rock band like Jordan Luck and his mob were for so many years. Some we even remember.

But Augustino are quite possibly the best New Exponents yet. Mainly because they sound like the Old Exponents, only minus the goofy smile, the patchy studio habits and the songs named after girls.

But like their predecessors they sure know their way to a chorus of brazen catchiness after a mock-serious verse or two sung in a voice (from frontman Sean Clarke) that's emotive without being overwrought.

Sometimes they can sound like other folks, too. Much of the lighters-aloft bit in ballad Say sounds - lyrically and melodically - dangerously close to Almost Gone, a lovely song by Britpop also-rans The Unbelievable Truth.

But Augustino's cut'n'paste isn't always that tasteful - Climb Away sounds like Duran Duran's Planet Earth having gone through the wash.

As for the rest, it's an album of rock-solid rock beginnings (the swaggering groove of Goin' Downtown; the heads-down guitar attack of Collapse), a soft and dreamy middle (the slow-to-mid-tempo tuneful trio of Lines are Down, Oh Bravo and You're Making Me Sober), and a mixed bag of a finish.

They aren't doing anything particularly new or trying to fit in to anyone's idea of cool or commercial.

But in delivering the fundamentals with such gusto and flair, the result is an impressive debut. An album that has a bit of Luck and plenty of pluck.

Label: Sony