Well, I’ve been busy for a while with school (final exams and such), but I’m back writing now, and I’m looking for more topics to write about! So, if you read this, feel free to leave a comment about what you’d like me to write about and I’d be more than willing to see what I can do about it! That having been said, I’m going to move onto today’s music review, which happens to be one of the best post-hardcore/progressive albums I’ve ever heard: The Artist In The Ambulance (the 2003 album by Thrice). This album has it all: melodies, interesting rhythms, breakdowns, fluctuating time signatures, very nice vocals and instrumental work, and, above all, a great sense of unity and atmosphere that leaves the listener feeling like they just listened to something amazing.
At first, it sounds like you’re just listening to you’re average loud metal cd, but then it changes it up with a very soft section towards the middle of the opening track, “Cold Cash and Colder Hearts”. Soon after experiencing the opener, you come to realize that these guys really know what they’re doing and how to make a great album. After a few tracks go by, you think you understand how the rest of the cd is going to go, and then it changes up with my favorite song off the cd, “Stare at the Sun”, a very melodic song that could almost be classified as a “ballad” by Thrice standards. That song will stay with you for a while. It’s got a very nice moving bassline which transfers over to guitar during the melody and the vocals, in my opinion, are spot-on.
Soon after “Stare at the Sun”, you’re slapped in the face by “Paper Tigers”, the most aggressive song on the cd. Just because it’s so much more aggressive than any of the previous songs doesn’t mean it’s any less musically astounding. On the contrary, “Paper Tigers” shows off the versatility of all the members of Thrice by completely changing the musical formula that they had set at the beginning of the cd. After “Paper Tigers” is over and you realize how great Thrice is as a whole, the epic progressive metal song known as “Hoods on Peregrine” pops up, and you’re in for a ride with this one. It starts off with a very nice drum/bass intro that gradually adds guitars and then it gets softer when the vocals come in, which makes you wonder what’s going to happen next. Then you realize it’s the calm before the storm, and boom! You’re hit with one of the most diverse yet unified songs I’ve ever heard.
The cd continues in this fashion until you get to the title song, “The Artist in the Ambulance”, another “soft” song like “Stare at the Sun”, but with a different atmosphere to it. In my opinion, it’s a very good song, but not as good as it could have been. Don’t get me wrong, I still like the song a lot, it just didn’t seem as full of energy and passion as the other songs on the cd. The cd finishes up with another slap in the face (“The Abolition of Man”), and a very nice, very progressive closer, entitled “Don’t Tell and We Won’t Ask”.
All in all, if you like anything along the lines of Haste the Day, Thursday, or maybe even Chiodos, this is a must-have addition to your music collection.
