Sometimes it astounds me how many bands are content to callously rip off the sounds of other artists. These bands attempt to meticulously emulate that which they cannot themselves imagine, and always to middling results. Others mimic certain elements of multiple bands and combine them into one incongruous whole. Still others snatch bits of existing songs, employing artist license to add heft to their own work by nabbing someone else's. These techniques are rarely effective in any other respect than making these bands look like total dipshits. But there's one technique that consistently produces interesting results: when a band simply touches the influences that inspire them, acknowledging their force but also challenging them. Music as an artform evolves when talented bands touch and are touched-- when, if you will, they abide by Newton's Third Law of Motion.
Ambulance Ltd. is a young, talented Brooklyn quintet that violates that law. Their self-titled EP is a collection of five vastly different songs, each an expert forgery of the work of some 90s indie rock muse. But considering the band's malleability and wide-ranging rock sensibility, it's particularly frustrating that these songs are only isolated forgeries and not the riveting atom-splitters that could have resulted.
"Stay Where You Are" is Ambulance's Elliott Smith song. Like all Smith compositions, it's melodically very pretty-- singer Marcus Congleton even pulls off a confident imitation of Smith's vocals. Guitars are subdued, only coming to prominence every two bars to announce a change in chord, but providing a distinct internal drive. The drumming is masterfully subtle: the bass drum puts four to the floor, accompanied by a steady ride and some occasional tom work. It takes two minutes, however, for a snare to enter the mix at all, finally breaking up the bass drum's steady pound and setting the rest of the instrumentation free. It's slightly gimmicky, sure, but the effect is nicely dramatic, and has much to do with this track being the EP's standout.
After the ho-hum, honky-tonk regurgitation "Primitive (The Way I Treat You)", Ambulance launch into "Heavy Lifting," a song composed of three very distinct parts. First comes the My Bloody Valentine shoegazing portion, followed by an early Beatles interlude, and then, perhaps ironically, a climax unlaudably ripped from the piano solo in Guns N' Roses' "November Rain". Elsewhere, "Helmsman" learned everything it knows from Washing Machine-era Sonic Youth, while "Young Urban Professional" is a fun lilt that one very well could have found on Yo La Tengo's most recent effort, Summer Sun.
There have been several other bands mentioned as reference points for Ambulance Ltd.-- more than anyone could reasonably be expected to tolerate-- but it serves to reiterate that Ambulance is truly a very malleable band with tons of energy and much occupation with detail. Here, they've very meticulously (though perhaps unwittingly) isolated their influences. With any luck, they'll grow more adventurous on future releases, recontextualize those influences, and arrive at their own unique sound-- a blueprint for future Ambulance Ltd.'s to emulate in their embryonic stages.
