SON, AMBULANCE
Key
Saddle Creek
· Mutual of Omaha’s wild kingdom.
What is it about Omaha that makes people want to get in touch with their feelings? While we’re on the subject, what’s with bands signed to Conor Oberst’s (Bright Eyes singer, songwriter and man-about-town) Nebraskan record label Saddle Creek? They all seem to share Oberst’s trademark panicked lyrical style of stringing together long, nonsensical monologues. These bands don’t just wear their hearts on their sleeves – they make party hats out of them and dance around for crying out loud.
It’s not that Son, Ambulance’s angry young frontman Joe Knapp kinda sounds like Oberst, it’s that he sounds exactly like him. Maybe it’s an unfair comparison (Knapp did make his vocal debut on the Bright Eyes album Every Day and Every Night, so it’s hard not to make the connection), but it’s eerie how similar their singing voices are. Both have the same lilting, crackled screams and fretful sighs. Mix that with fragile folk-rock orchestral swells, fist-pounding pianos and anguished violin solos and it’s hard to tell the difference between them.
However, you have to give it up for Knapp, he puts it all out there. "Paper Snowflakes" and "Sex in C Minor" are emotionally-wrecked masterpieces and "Taxi Cab Driver" is a superfine honky-tonk track. It’s just too bad that Knapp will always be in Oberst’s shadow. The one downside to being part of the Saddle Creek family is that it’s almost impossible for a band to be mentioned without reference to its label.
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