click to enlarge
In 2005 Son Ambulance’s Key pitter-pattered too long with endless piano-driven arrangements. Joseph Knapp had outdone himself, over-thinking rather than breathing easy. But their latest, Someone Else’s Déjà vu, sees Knapp and collaborator Jeffrey Koster (featuring members of Tilly and the Wall and The Faint) smoothing out dents and repairing kinks. Gone are the repetitive ivory-tinged ballads. Instead, various instruments give the album a fuller, more diverse sound, enabling Déjà vu to sound just as lusciously dreamy as its title implies. ‘A Girl in New York City,’ is a samba-soaked melting pot of sounds with whistles and claps. One of the more haunting songs, ‘Legend of Lizeth’, borrows from Simon and Garfunkel’s 60s suave, and is marked by Knapp’s “Maybe you won’t die young” lyrics, hushed to a quivering echo. The hazy five-minute-plus tracks need no trimming, while the storytelling is engaging and likely Knapp’s best. Finally, Son Ambulance’s lengthy meanderings are more memorable than droning.
