Most Popular
Most Popular sponsored by
Blogs
Fri Sep 5, 4:58 PM
Fri Sep 5, 4:21 PM
Fri Sep 5, 1:29 PM
Fri Sep 5, 12:16 PM
Fri Sep 5, 8:57 AM
Thu Sep 4, 12:42 PM
Fri Sep 5, 11:26 AM
Fri Sep 5, 6:23 AM
Recent Articles
Recent Articles by Michael Roberts
No related articles found
National Features >
SF Weekly
A blogger steals someone else's life story and calls it her own.
By Ashley Harrell
Westword
How William Orr's quest for better, cheaper gas became a crime.
By Alan Prendergast
The Pitch
I worked at Kmart with John McCain's director of strategy.
By Alan Scherstuhl
Augustana, with Paddy Casey and Wild Sweet Orange
Published on May 29, 2008
The growing number of television series that employ mid-tempo rock songs and plaintive ballads to pump up the emotion in major scenes has resulted in a proliferation of bands eager to provide the same — and San Diego's Augustana, which appears on this date with Paddy Casey and Wild Sweet Orange, couldn't be more typical of the breed. Like 2006's "Boston," a single that became a download smash with a little help from Scrubs, the songs on Can't Love, Can't Hurt, the group's new disc, are soundtrack-ready. Still, the stereotypically robust hooks and swelling strings on tracks such as "Hey Now" and "Twenty Years" seem just a little too perfect for that moment when star-crossed TV lovers stare longingly at each other across the courtroom or the operating chamber. Augustana's tracks are so ready for prime time that all the real life's been sucked out of them.