On its debut album, Sweetness & Dark, American Ambulance somehow found itself racing to the scene of a tragedy that hadnt even occurred when they wrote their songs. Towers up, a city so fair, shine like diamonds up in the air, Pete Cendella sang on the albums opening track. People all scurry in shadows below, but I have no idea which way I should go/Everything shatters, thats plain to see/Whats left gets scattered into the breeze/Id do anything, anything you please, if youd just come and play with me in the debris.
It was this eerie, accidental prescience, underscored by the bands tentative, brooding brand of lo-fi roots rock, which lent that album its charm. Stray, the bands follow-up disc, sounds almost as if it came from a different band. Either because of improved chops or a clearer sense of what they mean to do, this NYC quartets previously cautious playing has been replaced by a newfound electric aggression. The rhythm section thumps hard instead of hesitantly, and the old imagistic lyrics have been traded in, mostly, for plainspoken tales of mangy broken hearts (Stray Dog Blues) and road trips that never end (When I Get Home).
The album was made, they say, in the strangely fervent belief that Rock n Roll will never die, so theres a pop sensibility here wants to matter. At the heart of all the songs newly varied textures poppy oohs and aahs, atmospheric fiddle or accordion, hot mandolin picking, almost always a withering electric guitar solo is Cendallas agreeable, everymans voice, which itself is delivered more confidently than before.
The bands influences are more successfully deployed think the Velvet Underground of Loaded meets a citified Doug Sahm and its ambitions are clearer as well. This ambulance is still speeding to the rescue, and whether the emergency at hand lies in the past (Hey! Richard Nixon), in a cleaned out apartment (I Found Out About You, with backing vocal by Florence Dore), or in the dark night of the soul (Saturday Night & Sunday Morning), theyve got the hard-edged, soft-hearted rock ‘n roll cure.