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Ambitions - Stranger

Rating

RIYL

Quicksand
With Honor
Fugazi
CIV

Label

Bridge Nine

Tracklist

1. The Habit Of Despair Is Worse Than Despair Itself
2. The Illusion
3. Sinking
4. Fact Remains
5. Calamity
6. Rapid Succession
7. Overstep
8. Postscript
9. Stranger
10. Losing Control
11. Culmination (Of My Life's Work)
12. Between Breaths
13. Redemptive Soul

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Recent Ratings
Rick Gebhardt

Ambitions hit the ground in full stride making a name for themselves exceptionally quick in a scene devoid of any media recognition with both their No Limits demo, and their debut EP, Question; it’s obviously a no brainer considering the fact that Ambitions are the remnants of Victory’s With Honor. After being considered a With Honor side project by many critics since the inception of the band, Ambitions have finally released their much anticipated Stranger debut via Bridge 9 Records. But how long can a band who shot out from the starting gate keep from stumbling?

The answer to the aforementioned is apparently only a few strides. Once running like Seabiscuit for the first half of the race, Ambitions look to be headed on a one way trip to the glue factory with a semi-lethargic approach to a debut full length effort. In essence, Stranger sounds to be chock full of mediocre b-side and never released material from With Honor or Levittown, NY’s Crime In Stereo, with the only redeeming quality being only three or four songs. The album opens up with the track “The Habit Of Despair Is Worse Than Despair Itself”, an instrumental intro that lasts a little less than a minute. Regardless of the song's length, it strikes a chord with the audience which infers that the remaining tracks on Stranger are going to make up an epic and eventful journey full of chaotic beauty.

Instead, the audience is left somewhat disappointed shortly after track two, “The Illusion”, begins, but still left with a little glimmering hope. That glimmering and ever so slightly fading hope is quickly brought back up to the highest plateau when track three, “Sinking”, begins. The song is packed with an excellent amount of yelling rather than singing in a start / stop-esque gang vocal state to a backdrop of screaming guitars and energetic percussion. “Calamity” and “Rapid Succession” seal the listener's hopes of Stranger being a behemoth of an album as the images shed by these three songs alone restore the listener's hope in the band and make you want to crawl over a handful of people, grab the mic, and sing along.

However, all things that follow “Rapid Succession” absolutely obliterate the listener’s initial perceptions of what was claimed to be by everyone something truly remarkable. Instead of “phenomenal”, the latter half of the album is filled with a rather lackluster simplicity feeling completely void of all emotion and originality, so much so that it’s nearly impossible to produce words accurate enough to describe the utter blandness that creates this. Now, as good as Neon Lights and Question were at bringing a young band with very little material up to the forefront of a genre, Stranger appears to accomplish quite the opposite dragging Ambitions back down to their trial and error days, back down to when they were fighting to make a name for themselves. Perhaps with their sophomore album, Ambitions will finally be able to pick themselves up and finish the race they so eloquently began.

--Daniel Alcinii

Author

danal

Last updated: 09/29/2009 08:59PM

Comments

jamoncito

11/12/2007

11:26AM

Age: 23

Location
Los Angeles

I LOVE their first releases and I refuse to believe that this is that bad, but you never know. I'm going to pick it up later so I can have my own opinion on this one.