No question mark, no exclamation. Because, as Louise Rhodes croons with sweet philosophical reason on the closing track, 'what is, just is'. After their self-titled debut from 1996, which injected the rigid form of drum 'n' bass with bendy bits of blues, hip hop, classical and jazz and offered up the beauteous 'Cotton Wool' and 'Gorecki' singles, Lamb delivered 'Fear Of Fours'. A complex, densely layered, often darkly abrasive adventure into post-techno and electronica, it proved too traumatic for many souls initially seduced by the tenderness of 'Lamb'. In fact, it freaked 'em right out. Now, then - after an intra-band communication hump in which
(horreur!) Lamb very nearly knocked it on the head - the 'difficult third album'.
As if. 'What Sound' is actually the sound of Lamb sussed and sorted and perfectly centred, hitting a flawless blend of fuck-off, baffled beats, intriguing textured ambience and lush, soulful melodicism. Rhodes and Andy Barlow have invited guests - Michael Franti, Doves' Jimi Goodwin and Me'Shell NdegeOcello among them - to deliver attitude and pulchritude in equal parts.
Highlights? You may as well try and isolate the brightest bulb in Blackpool, but: swoon to the sweetly minimal title track; hear how 'This Could Be Heaven' shifts back and forth between delicately insistent and havin'-it-large pushy; check the monstrous, thrillingly damaged 'Scratch Bass'; resist blubbing, if you can, during the unabashedly emotional 'Gabriel'; and soak up the thousand subtle inflections which add colour and tone everywhere. It's time - succumb to the bleat surrender.
review: Sharon O'Connell
nicked from 'Time Out', dated October 2001
