Lamb are a British coed duo – Lou Rhodes (probably short for
\nLouise) and Andy Barlow, that are part of a trendy movement in
\nmusic known as electronica. The most celebrated group in this field
\nis another British band called The Chemical Brothers. The music in
\ngeneral can be described as follows: cool, rhythm-heavy songs with
\nlots of electric keyboard sampling, plenty of percussion, and a
\ndreamy style of singing. Lamb and their recent CD,
\nFear Of Fours<\/i>, is no exception to this. However, I think
\nthey do bring more to the table than my stereotype of the
\ngenre.<\/p>\n
The biggest strength that Lamb brings to
\nFear Of Fours<\/i> are the arrangements. They play around with
\nthe sound by adding a string section on a few songs, a horn section
\non others, and in some cases both, particularly on the song “All In
\nYour Hands.”<\/p>\n
The arrangements are also the big star of the CD’s tour-de-force
\ncalled “Ear Parcel”. This instrumental piece manages to combine in
\ndifferent sections, a big dance beat with new-age mellowness and
\nyet somehow make it work. Add a sampling of jazz great Charlie
\nParker’s rendition of “How High The Moon” to the mix, and you’ve
\ngot an impressive, imaginative piece of work.<\/p>\n
The musicianship is better than I might have expected, and
\nparticularly outstanding is Jon Thorne playing the double bass, and
\nit is on many tracks where his bass lines are the driving force to
\nthe music. And he is adept at changing styles to suit the changing
\nstyles of the music.<\/p>\n
Rhodes’s singing does take a bit getting used to. Her voice is
\nnot unlike recent singing sensation Macy Gray. Although not quite
\nas funky as Gray, they share a high pitched voice that at their
\nbest moments seem to be channeling the late jazz singer Billie
\nHoliday.<\/p>\n
This comes through on some of the jazzier moments, as fleeting
\nas they are. The best example is on “B Line” which definitely gets
\ninto a jazz groove in the verse, only to see it vanish on the noisy
\ntrip-hop chorus.<\/p>\n
Now the question is how are the songs? For the most part, they
\nare pretty good. The best ones are “Bonfire” which is a slow,
\nhaunting song with an effective arrangement of the string section.
\n“Here” would be my choice for the single as it moves along nicely
\nwith a good beat and hook, but not without some surprises
\ninstrumentally. The bass and the percussion are especially
\nhypnotic.<\/p>\n
“Fly” is another satisfying, upbeat tune. When Rhodes sings
\n“Angels are going to take me”, the band makes it sound like it is
\nreally happening. On the other side, the worst song has got to be
\n“Alien”, a silly song that recalls bad, arty science fiction
\nmovies.<\/p>\n
Electronica hasn’t quite hit the mainstream in the United
\nStates, as we are going through (as of this writing) a Latin music
\nexplosion. Frankly, electronica really is the antithesis of the
\nlatin sound as it is cool and aloof compared to Latin’s heat and
\npassion. But don’t be surprised if it does eventually hit these
\nshores in a big way, after all, punk rock finally became
\nmainstream.<\/p>\n
While I don’t think
\nFear Of Fours<\/i> is the CD that is going to start that musical
\nrevolution, it is worth a listen for those wanting to hear a new
\nsound and should satisfy those that are already into this
\nmusic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":25324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6285],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-36530","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-lamb","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36530"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36530"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}