ambulance ltd
no matter how hard they try theband are going to have issues with the name. they want you to call them ambulance el-tee-dee as opposed to 'ambulance limited'. oh well name issues aside what this highly anticipated album actually like. well if the whole album was as strong as the opening track 'yoga means union' where they start things off with a heavy brooding intense shoegazing type of instrumental guitar lead track, powerfully building up to an almighty finale the track is quite simple jaw droppingly awesome. i was spellbound, but this is a case of misleading the lazy muckers who just hear the first track on listening posts into buying the album, as from here on things change. sometimes for the better, sometimes not so. for a start when the velvet underground styled monotonic melody of 'primitive' kicks in you cannot help but be swept away by the flood of easy familiarity, and bask in the warm fuzzed up glow that the groove swings along to, or the ride meets doves of 'heavy lifting' then you realise that, along with the latest album from emetrex (another guitar based band), that the days of the new-rock-garage band that has dominated recent years are on the wane as 90's indierock is back with a vengeance. which, being honest, for this listener is a mighty fine thing. give me this style of layered guitars, happy-sad moods, driving rhythms, reach for the sky ('orphelia', 'stay where you are') melodies any day. ok, a lot of the tracks are all heavily based in the history books, but, i for one, am not complaining. as this may make some people go out and dig in the bins for old albums by ride, swervedriver and suchlike, which has to be a good thing.
a word of warning, not all of the album works - the coral styled throwaway track 'anecdote' sticks out like a sore thumb and should have been added as a 'hidden' track as it spoils the flow of the album for me, but hey that's what remote controls are for.
so, for anyone who was kinda miffed that the dandy warhols decided to discover synths and duran Duran with their last album and ditched their guitar based musical plundering - fear not - ambulance el-tee-dee have come along to save your souls.