NYC-based AMBULANCE LTD'S history is a typical rock'n'roll story of struggling, day jobs, nomadic members accumulating in the one city and fending off impoverished oblivion by pawning guitars as the fledgling band try to survive while they rehearse. It's a struggle that would last for several fruitless years before they finally hit paydirt when TVT Records sign them and put out the head-turning "Stay Where You Are" EP sometime back in the mists of 2003.
That EP was raved about on W&H at the time and proved that while the band's dogged perseverance must have helped to drive them, they also realised they were onto something that had the potential to last. And so, now that eponymous debut album "Ambulance Ltd" (it's pronounced El-tee-dee, just to clear that one up quickly) finally arrives, it slinks in with real style and makes it clear the band were right to sit tight, brush away the slings and arrows and wait for the world to catch up all along.
Because "Ambulance Ltd" is a gorgeously assured debut from a band who arrive fully-formed and utterly fantabulous. Yes, they are superficially not a million miles from kindred NYC spirits such as, say, Stellastarr* in terms of their affinity with fizzy angularity, but scratch beneath the surface and you'll find Sonic Youth scuzz, honeyed west coast pop rushes and midwestern country twang bubbling in the band's bloodstream. The whole caboodle adds up to a vastly satisfying alchemical mixture and one of the most refreshing guitar pop debuts you're liable to clap ears on all year.
Ambulance Ltd's main creative artery is singer/ songwriter Marcus Congleton, but the band function democratically throughout, with a Television-style approach to detail, and no more so than on the scene-setting opening track "Yoga Means Union", where heavy blocks of tom-toms lay a foolpfoof foundation and the guitars move in perpetual motion. It's a groovily intuitive build, and is the very epitome of atmospheric intelligence at work and play.
From there on in, they barely put a foot wrong. "Primitive (The Way I Treat You)" and "Stay Where You Are" are recalled from the EP and it's good to welcome them back into the fold once again. "Primitive..." features stalking riffs so cool they need to wear Ray-Bans, while Congleton's vocals are as laconic as a young Lou Reed. The way he sings "relax - don't think about the way that I treat you" and then the band surge through in his slipstream is surely one of the record's highlights. "Stay Where You Are", meantime, still throws you a curve with that dreamy intro lulling you into a false sense of security before it revs up into something that curiously sounds to this writer like Microdisney's "Singer's Hampstead Home" as sung by The Go-Betweens. If you can cut me that much slack. "Heavy Lifting" is also a muscular re-invention of a previous highlight, and it's another treat, kicking into life with stuttery, discordant guitars, before the whole band stretch out superlatively and throw some shapes all their own.
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Elsewhere, the shock of the unfamiliar is sweet indeed. "Sugar Pill", for example, is a bouncy pop thing with a rubbery, neo-dub bassline from Matt Dublin, which also features tumbling drums, John Barry-style guitar figures and droplets of marimba before the claustrophobic vocals flourish into an utterly beautiful chorus. At a separate tangent, "Swim" flirts with the current crop of nu-shoegazing debutantes and wears its' Valentines' influences on its' sleeve, but despite the racks of FX and the blanched vocals, the band ensure the melodic content is never squeezed dry and the end results are truly quite glorious. More surprising still, is "Michigan"s warm and fuzzy redemptive pop where Congleton sings "I've been a real bad family man/ sucking the wine like Indians on a mountain" with a feel of real remorse. It's probably not (?) autobiographical, but still sounds wonderfully remorseful and has very favourable echoes of both the Go-B's and third album-era Velvets.
Arguably, though, they save the crowning glory for the finale. Initially breezy and deceptively slight, "Young Urban" is shot seamlessly through with that indefinable cool only New York can produce and from a smooth, silky and sumptuously unhurried early premise gradually billows to the heavenliest of crescendoes. It's the icing on a cake of the most more-ish variety and the tastiest of thematic deviations from the norm.
Of course it's undeniable that because Ambulance Ltd hail from one of the world's most respected of all boroughs they gain a credibility headstart, but they more than hold their own against any of their contemporaries throughout this debut and are never eclipsed by the influential shadows thrown by NYC'S musical history either. I'd suggest you hitch a ride on their medicinal bandwagon while it can still clear a way through the streets unimpeded.
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