NIA Centre, Manchester
FORGET all that stuff about opposites attracting. Forget all of those record reviews (including mine) which have held Lamb aloft as purveyors of out-on-a-limb eclecticism because Lamb playing live is where it all comes together. Genres fused, spiky edges rounded as the band deconstruct the essence of their album to create... folk music!
Not the woolly jumpers and fingers-in-your-ear stuff, but more of a woolly jump-up-and give-a-finger-to-the-system kind of thing. A sound which captures the multi-cultural urban jig; the fire dance of inner-city front lines. Not that Lamb are confrontational in a Class War kind of way. They're certainly not on any overtly political crusade, it's just that they evoke the behind-the-curtains nu-hippy lifestyle of the stop the streets / kill the bill / stuff the Tories activists. It's all candles, joss sticks, easy drum'n'bass and a few Joni Mitchell songs over a spliff. A soundtrack for the ranked masses of middle-class rebels. And, in a more prejudiced light, I might have written Lamb off, but the simple fact of the matter is their music is very special indeed. Beautiful, even.
Perhaps the strongest feature in the transition from beat boy experimentation to campfire kitsch is the voice and presence of Louise Rhodes. Dressed in white, her impish features and quiet voice evoke a frailty which threatens to crumble under the sheer weight of the band's intentions (and pretensions). In response, the volume of the music is turned down to a point where the punch-drunk power of the beats becomes subdued to the level of a backing track. Subsequently there's a freedom and space that lets double bass lines stroll, upturned trumpets that Dizzy Gillespie would be proud of throw muted shapes and melodies soar.
"Cotton Wool" and "God Bless" find Rhodes throwing off the icy demeanour which marked her festival appearances this year. Instead, she positively melts with the tunes. "Lusty" is the same, an aching melody concentrating a dozen disparate elements into one powerful whole. Indeed, the entire live experience only accentuates the fact that Lamb aren't yet another drum'n'bass with added female vocals outfit; the melodies are always the axis of Barlow's beat collages, a notion shown to startling effect on "Zero", "Gorecki" and "Feela" where a string section, is added, bringing with it a subdued solemnity.
A shimmering glow, an ether-bound groove, a comfortable ambience; Lamb capture the beauty at the heart of urban decay and for that reason alone they're a band to be savoured and embraced.
Back to mine for a spliff and some Joni Mitchell, then?
review: Martin James
nicked from 'Melody Maker', dated 12 October 1996
