The Ambush

The Ambush have recently exploded onto the Manchester music scene. They launched their suprise-attack by playing an introductory gig in front of Mani from the Stone Roses and a table of his mohican-haired, lip-pierced friends in a buzzing Thirsty Scholar, Manchester. The Wild Rose hoisted aloft The Ambush flag, approving of their furious energy and frantic antics that had been threatening to ignite ever since the first day of formation.

The nucleus of the band had formed in the final months of 2007 as Tim Fanning (guitar) and Steve Noire (vox) joined forces with aptly-named, multi-instrumental talent, Lord Kitchener (bass, sax, keys). ’The Ambush needs YOU’ recruiting posters attracted the final militiamen: Lez Paul Dennis’ (guitar),  musicianship and SXSW-touring CV spoke for itself.  As did the battle-hardened brute force of Nick Oram (drums).

The Ambush was carefully laid in a number of small venues around Manchester, beginning small at the Thirsty Scholar and onto Joshua Brooks, The Ruby Lounge and Night & Day Cafe, culminating in dates supporting Hijak Oscar and Hungover Stuntmen. Electrifying performances, dirty grooves, attacking vocals, off-beat humour and schizophrenic spasms have led to inevitable comparisons with Joy Division and The Small Faces, but The Ambush do an original brand of Manchester. A typical set includes a misty mixture of delta blues, ska, punk and psychedelic harmonies all within infectious, contemporary indie.

The Ambush are giving away copies of their single Running Out My Mind/Blackspot/Let It Out at their live performances.

The Ambush single was recorded at Blueprint Studios over a couple of days in February. ‘Running Out My Mind’ begins with an infectious country riff that recalls ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ via a distorted Grange Hill theme tune. The opening ‘jink-jink-jink’ thrash of every instrument gives a sighter of the full force of the Ambush artillery. The vocals are exclaimed with a mixture of anguish and playfullness, as the subject matter veers from the weight of family expectations to nauseous Sunday roast dinners. Sugar sweet harmony-sung reggae lines signal the first rays of Tim Fanning’s exultant guitar solo that, in turn, gives way to what sounds like someone jumping on a piano. The end is simply raucous.

‘Blackspot’ is a witty little ditty; a comic song full of quirks, hooks and loopholes for the listener to latch onto and tie themselves up in. Lez Paul’s guitar FX on the opening verse is laugh-out-loud, as is the fake AM radio drum n’ bass that accompanies it. Layers of sound increase until a lunar-launch guitar effect bursts into a Clash-style punky shouty bridge and wild chorus (Are there audible signs of Lord Kitchener’s saxophone within this Ska hotchpotch?) The lyrics are cracking fun-pokes at the corporate music ’scenes’ of the moment: “All the kids are getting stoned, sponsored by a mobile phone,” and “It’s hard to feel euphoric when you’re twenty miles from Warwick” are two such nugget couplets. In glimpses, there are Beach Boy-layered backing vocals which give further weight to the garagey outbursts. Nick Oram’s snare and bass drums are alive and being kicked to death in the second half of this song, which moves with the effortless dexterity towards adolescent climax.

Being the standard bearer of The Ambush set, ‘Let It Out’ offers a dramatic change in tone. The blood and thunder of Running Out My Mind is retained, but gone are the rye comments and wistful japery to be replaced by an agonised brawn and aggression that is plainly transfered onto even the worst quality of speaker. The arrangement is stripped down and primal in comparison, and will have your bare bones jangling to the punchy rhythm. The echoed backing vocals are genius, the raw (and roar) lead vocal is deep and passionate. The message is clear: Let it out; say what you’ve gotta say, now, without hesitation, clearly, unequivocably… and then get the hell out. The hackles rise, the hair stands on end, the harmonica solo is chewed out of a rabid mouth - THE END IS NIGH - “I’m gonna take your stuff and burn it!” spits Steve Noire as he mops saliva, blood and whiskey with his sleeve. And within this image lies the legacy of The Ambush’s first single: a pile of books, cuddly toys, shiny jewellery, and fond old records, ablaze on the lawn.

 Joshua Brooks, Oct 2007 - The Ambush of the Unsuspecting

I suppose a typical Mr Promo-Hawk-Hack with political attack might describe the venue as intimate or personal, but o darling - I’m not one of those. No tall tales or short truths: the Joshua Brooks venue was tight on room, tight on beer, tight on women - well, apart from the provincial short-skirted, clammy-thighed drunken hen-night cellulite wobblers; the kind you see under the orange neon hue on Booze Britain documentaries. (Warrington sometime-past favorites, The Kingsway may have been in some way responsible for this sweaty harem.)

Fortunately, onto the bare dancefloor that could have reflected back a forlorn glitterball of a decade ago, strode The Ambush boys, intent on launching their stage attack, bypassing the Disco 2000 PVC handbag and aping the Gallagher-esques with a knowing look - the look that betrays the fact that THEY know they are the present, THEY are the future of Manchester music and nevermind the Buzzcocks, the bollocks…stick the Smiths and move on Mondays. 

The Warrington lot tried to mess them around and take the piss, but by the end of a bare half hour, their Adidas tracksuits had suddenly aged 15 years; their Reebok trainers looked out of place, as do velvet winklepickers on a gym treadmill. The Ambush opened with a track so bold, so shocking, so uncalled for, that nobody saw it coming - not least the Warringtoners; ‘When wuz the last time we were in Manc, la?! Fock’s happenin’?’ The bass streamed, the vocals cackled and harmonised in turns, the guitars chuntered and pierced to form pastiches of every music form known to man, without being heavy, without being pretentious - only being the most joyous, aggressive and ludicrous jape in the last gig on earth. It helped to back me up later that the soundman confirmed that: ‘The Ambush are like nothing else in this city at the moment. And I’ve done over 400 bands…’

As I sat and watched, then stood and cheered and laughed and awestruck-agaped, I found myself in need of a reassessment of the word ‘intimate’. The singers aimed their words at me. There was no-one within arms reach. I could touch only the noise. The floor was bare, other than the handbag. And then I realised that I had become the spectacle, the harlequin, the laughing-stock. I was upfront, under their noses, the only one in Manchester taking this in, waving my arms around crazily, pointing fingers and making weird gurgles of approval. I surely won’t be alone for long. The Ambush boys played on regardless with no recognition that someone had got it, and knew for certain that the band had IT -they handled the IT of the moment. The Tuesday night ‘crowd’, the provincial Northwesterners, the heaped-on, congested roundabout, plastic-cupped lager Britain that they faced. And they took it in and laughed and played the last tipsy waltz of the world with tunes of memories gone by. And yes, I saw it first. Truly I saw it first!

Jon Pimlico, Heads On The Ground Magazine

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