The Gullivers - Ambulance EP

You’ve got to be very careful when touting the brand of sparse, atmospheric post-punk that Oxford band The Gullivers offer up on debut EP, ‘Ambulance’. While there’s a lot to be said for bleak, minimalist songs (especially at this time of year), there’s a danger of straying into half-cooked simplicity.

Unfortunately The Gullivers more often than not fall into the latter category - at times the simple guitar lines and basic drumming leave the band sounding like a cold and hungover Mercury Rev tribute act. The primal drum beat and lack of any real melody on ‘Neptune’ makes for a dull three minutes and as such, slips by without attracting so much as a sideways glance. ‘Silhouette’ is cut from a slightly better cloth but still plods along with a lack of any real substance.

Opening track ‘Ambulance’, however, is beautiful. Mark Byrne’s fragile vocals are scattered over waves of clean, delayed guitar that wouldn’t sound out of place on an ‘Explosions In The Sky’ album. Introspective and haunting - played loud on a cold, dark night in January, this makes a lot of sense.