AMBULANCE

A new contribution from one of my favorite soundscape producers, Sweden's The Amazing. A little more folk=- oriented and lacking some of the exciting "highs" I like to find, still a good album from 2016.

1. "Ambulance" (4:24) Great Amazing sound, great melody; don't like the drumming. (8.75/10)

2. "Divide" (5:24) great mix, great lead guitar play beneath the singing throughout, okay melody, okay chorus; no substantial hook(s). (8.5/10)

3. "Blair Drager" (5:33) opens with a great sound between the drums and guitar single-chord descending slide. Bass and low register "spoken" vocal are also cool, different. Awesome switch into the awesome chorus. Nice keyboard/synth work--and solo in the final section. (9/10)

4. "Tracks" (6:40) opens with a wonderful, dreamy, (shoegaze), AMAZING/THE CURE sound with guitar arpeggi, slow drum beat, and atmospheric bass and keys. This goes on for an awesomely relaxing two minutes before lead guitar(s) enter and the drums double up their pace. Dreamy, multi-tracked vocals don't enter until 2:30 and seem to come in with the chorus. Great guitar chord play in the final minute as the music slows back down to match the speed of the opening section. (9/10)

5. "Floating" (4:37) opens with a very familiar, kind of EAGLES-feeling song construct before Christofer enters. Great use of female voice(s) for background vocals in the chorus. Putting the snare in the left channel is an interesting touch. (8.5/10)

6. "Through City Lights" (7:43) very slow, old 50s/60s bluesy/doo-wap-era sound to this one. Acoustic guitar joins in in the third minute. Nice work from the acoustic in the final minute. Slight build in soundscape but never really grows anywhere exciting--which, over almost 8 minutes, proves to be its downfall. (7.5/10)

7. "Moments Like These" (4:21) finger-picked guitars make this one feel 60s folk, almost C&W. Vocals do nothing to change this impression. Odd stop and rather radical shift at 1:42 leads to a group sing of a line, "I know that everyone wants somebody" or something like that, and then it goes back to the original song structure with increased drum presence. (8/10)

8. "Perfect Day For Shrimp" (6:24) all acoustic guitar opening (two guitars picking) for 30 seconds before Christoffer enters to sing what is probably my favorite vocal, melody, and lyric of the album. Drums enter at 1:30. Nice use of background vocals and synths. Gap of silence at 3:40 till 4:10 when a what feels like a whole new song rises up. How odd! (8/10)

While I love the Amazing sound, I haven't found anything really super exciting on this album to "write home about." I have a true confession to make here: I've never liked/been impressed with the drumming on The Amazing albums: the "signatory" snare use is way too busy and, over time, grating.

Four stars; a nice contribution of folkie prog rock.