Album Review: Ambitions of Ambiguity by Buffalo Hunt

While many of us have been hunkered down, trying to figure out what to do with ourselves for the past couple years, singer-songwriter Stephanie Hunt was spending her time composing and recording her first solo album under the moniker Buffalo Hunt. 

Last month saw Buffalo Hunt release Ambitions of Ambiguity – a warm, potent, bourbon-spiked peach cobbler that starts sweet on the tongue before warming your insides with an ennui that perfectly captures this moment in time. Take a bite, and before you know it, you’ll find yourself gazing off into the distance thinking about the meaning of life in 21st century America.

Which is not to say this record is a downer. It just sneaks up on you with its commitment to melancholy and lowkey irreverence that most of us are feeling after three years in a global pandemic. Songs like “Life Not on My Terms” and “Addicted to Reality” don’t play nicely with defined genres. At times experimental, this collection of songs teases out addictive melodies and reflective lyrics with a solid psyche rock vibe and yet, with enough acoustic guitar and piano there can be no doubt it comes from Texas.

In fact, about halfway through the album she adds a heaping scoop of homemade vanilla ice-cream to her melancholy cobbler. “Which One of Us is to Blame” – a country classic – is recorded with her fiancé (the legendary Shakey Graves) and leaves no room for doubt that Hunt’s style is as rooted and rebellious as any outlaw country artist.

                                               

My favorite track on this record is “Play the Fool” which takes me back musically to mid-80s country/pop crossover artists like Crystal Gayle and Roseanne Cash – take a talented southern singer-songwriter and juice up their music with enough synth and hooks to turn out some Top 40 earworms. 

Lyrically, “Play the Fool” plays like a commentary on the self-obsessed lack of interest our society has displayed in working together to combat – well, anything – for the common good:

“The trouble with external rule: 

All the people should have equal responsibility for a healthy society.

So tell me can I play the fool, and blame it on you?

So tell me can I play the fool, and blame it on you?”

Through her reflective lyrics and a fearless experimentation with sound and composition overall, it’s clear that Hunt is using her art as much as a form of self-discovery as she is just trying to throw down a few catchy tunes. And these songs are memorable. I find myself singing them out loud, long after the music stops.

Ambitions of Ambiguity deserves your time and attention for being unflinchingly nonconformist. Throw it on, even in the background, and you’ll find it creeping into your consciousness – a word or a phrase, a note or an unexpected instrumental. Music like this is easy to listen to, and hard to forget. 

Learn more about Buffalo Hunt online.

Photos from the album release concert on April 30, 2022 – The Parish – Austin, TX – Photographer: Sonya Hernandez

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