Ramp (album)
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| Ramp | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
.jpg) | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1991 | |||
| Genre | Country rock | |||
| Label | Amazing Black Sand | |||
| Producer | Howe Gelb | |||
| Giant Sand chronology | ||||
| ||||
Ramp is an album by the American band Giant Sand, released in 1991.[1][2] The album was released via frontman Howe Gelb's Amazing Black Sand label, before being picked up by Restless Records.[3]
The majority of the album was produced by Gelb.[4] Victoria Williams contributed backing vocals to the album's second track, "Romance of Falling," the only track produced by Dusty Wakeman.[5][6] Pappy Allen also makes an appearance on Ramp.[7] The album was recorded in Los Angeles and Tucson.[6]
Critical reception
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [5] |
| Robert Christgau | A−[8] |
| The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [9] |
| MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide |  [4] |
| Spin Alternative Record Guide | 7/10[10] |
Robert Christgau wrote: "The first side makes something of the dissociated atmospherics that undermined the band's previous umpteen releases; the second's almost popwise. Together they're what country-rock was never really like, or wanted to be."[8] Trouser Press thought that "Gelb seems to have found a way to propel himself at will into a deconstruction zone where boogie can mutate into pre-rock vocal harmony ('Warm Storm') and Sun Ra can be construed as a lounge lizard (the slurry 'Jazzer Snipe')."[11] The Austin American-Statesman deemed it "the kind of revelatory release that makes one want to search out everything the band has previously recorded."[12] LA Weekly likened the album to "Neil Young hallucinating punk rock... But this time out, the riffs are gentler, the harmonies sweeter."[13]
The Spin Alternative Record Guide opined that the band "has mastered the art of rambling within a loose structure."[10]