The album's opening track, "Ambulance", starts off with a complex drum beat. Sam Bloch of "Stylus Magazine" praised the song's intro, describing the beat as "an offbeat rhythmic synapse that nearly collapses into itself [...] Heavy electronic drums. A flash. A kick. At first, it's really hard to believe that this is a song, functioning on its own. The beat needs crutches to stand upright." Devon Powers of Pop Matters wrote that "the first bars [...] are stricken with throbbing beats that sound simultaneously futuristic and primitive." Bloch went on to write: "as a low, thunderous bass enters listener's speakers, the whole thing slowly grows. Distinctive African percussion is leisurely incorporated into the bass overtone—it's the darkness in a thunderstorm, the pure, simple fury that comes before a glorious lightning streak."