Angelo de Augustine - Toil and Trouble Review
Four years after his previous solo effort, 'Toil and Trouble' deftly distils Angelo de Augustine's emotive pain and experience into a tragically intimate and simultaneously beautiful release.
Feedback rises from sunken depths until it’s abruptly curtailed by soft muted acoustic and the breathy vocals of Augustine flooding the soundscape with a sweet shimmering sound. 'Toil and Trouble' is the fourth solo album from California based musician Angelo De Augustine and comes hot off the heels from his recent collaborative release with Sufjan Stevens.
‘Toil and Trouble’ is a uniquely refined artistic vision; a rare occurrence of a solo musician handling production and mixing in addition to songwriting. This unbridled creative control creates a wholly individual collection of songs infused not only with Augustine’s original vision, but with a distillation of his psyche at the time of writing. Plagued by a nightmarish period of supernatural visions throughout the album’s creation, Augustine’s disturbed mind infuses the tracklist with an otherworldly air. "The ballad of Betty and Barney Hill" tells a famous, "true" story of a couple's UFO abduction whilst 'Home Town' details the horror of a mass shooting occurring so close to Augustine's childhood home. A feeling of constant unrest inspired much of the subject matter throughout the album, whilst soporific songwriting refracts a captivating beauty from this profound darkness.
A carefully constructed tracklist guides the listener on a journey of quiet introspection. Weaving between fragile ambience and tuneful ballads, a plethora of magical sounds are implemented to accompany Augustine’s silken singing and gentle acoustic guitar. Haunting mellotron cascades into 'Memory Palace' while cosmic synthesisers entwine into 'Another Universe'. Meditative tracks like 'Healing Waters' swap the structured soft guitar work for contemplative soundscapes; bubbling water morphs together with tapped synthesiser, conjuring calming imagery that slides perfectly between this soothing lullaby.
Children’s characters populate the lyrical imagery of ‘Toil and Trouble’ with Peter Pan and Christopher Robin both appearing in ‘I Don’t Want To Live, I Don’t Want To Die’. The levity of these characters sharply juxtaposed with Augustine’s pleas towards his mother and reflection on his struggles with mental health. Intensely dark lyricism is constantly turned and twisted to sparkle in the bubbling light of ‘Toil and Trouble’.
“I don't wanna live, I don't wanna die / I keep a Colt 45 in my drawer if I change my mind”
Four years after his previous solo effort, 'Toil and Trouble' deftly distils Angelo de Augustine's emotive pain and experience into a tragically intimate and simultaneously beautiful release.