What ties all of it together is Knapp's modest everydude voice, which rarely is intrusive but even more rarely sounds like it's operating from a position of strength. But Son, Ambulance is too laidback to be out of a comfort zone for long, and the wafting major chords of "Quand Tu Marches Seul" finds "technically proficient Piano Magic" and "heavily narcotized Dears" as the borders. "A Girl in New York City" is a bit tough to trace lyrically, but it does an admirable job capturing the essence of its saucer-eyed title character, reflecting all sorts of wonder and culture-vulture consumption in its constantly morphing, light-loafered samba arrangement the brief forays into buzzy guitar soloing even brings to mind Hissing of Summer Lawns-era Joni Mitchell, before the fever-dreamy "Legend of Lizeth" takes a soak in Canterbury Calgon. Which just gives us another easy way out while dealing with Son, Ambulance's third LP, which is intermittently fluid and challenging in its arrangements and occasionally gorgeous- but a lot of times, it just feels like you can't possibly finish it in a wakeful state.įor the first couple of listens, Knapp's willingness to play dress up carries the day. But even if one of Saddle Creek's most quietly ambitious artists is flying without a net, it's hard to call it thrilling, since Knapp forsook that adjective when he punned on his band name. Battle of Who Could Care Less (can't believe Brian Howe used "Brick"-layer before I had a chance to) and Son, Ambulance's Joe Knapp were namedropped in an approximate 1:1.5 ratio, but not only has Knapp given us nearly four years to dig up different piano man comparisons, he's pretty much ditched the ivories altogether. I guess it's sort of a buzzkill to start off this way, but Someone Else's Déjà Vu is more interesting as a state-of-music-criticism case study than a collection of songs: If we're really doing our jobs here, this sentence will feature the last time you see "Ben Folds" in a Son, Ambulance review.
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