Build Date: Wed Dec 4 00:10:16 2024 UTC
If I see a van full of clowns driving down the Five that morning, I'm running them off the road.
-- Flesh
Lamb - Fear of Fours
1999-08-10 11:37:00
Yet another music review from Mr. Bad! This one is about Lamb! Not the Sharry Lewis hand puppet. The OTHER Lamb.
Hey, so, I've recently realized that I only seem to review stuff that I've got the previous version of already. Like, I reviewed Orbital and Portishead and a couple of other things, and I just talked about the first album all the time and then finally got around to the actual CURRENT album some time around the end of the article. This review will be no exception to that rule.
The band Lamb is two English people, Andy Barlow (music stuff) and Lou Rhodes (singing stuff - a GIRL). Their first album, "Lamb," from, uh, 1997 or something, had this incredible SIDEWAYS MADNESS ENERGY going for it. It was techno but with an experimental madman jazz feeling to it. Like, the music would just be going ALL OVER THE PLACE, then STOP, not do ANYTHING for 10 seconds, then start again going IN A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DIRECTION that you would never expect, which if it was a minivan would have snapped the necks of the the entire soccer team and the mom, too.
You know how jazz is real fine-grained? Like, there's a lot of shit going on between every two notes, between every note itself? Well, well, well, Lamb music is LIKE THAT, is what I'm trying to say. Do you get what I mean?
Not to mention that Ms. Rhodes writes incredible lyrical word stuff that's just real good. She has a weird voice, lilto-twango-strangeness, but it works real well with the music. And the lyrics are brain-twisting and worthwhile. Like for example "Cottonwool," the third track on "Lamb", is maybe the best love song ever written. [OK, I think Massive Attack's "Protection" is pretty close, but it's really a toss up. But "Protection" is more of a horrible song, and "Cottonwool" is beautiful and dysfunctional.]
Frankly, the whole album is just really good for sex, is where I'm going with this.
OK, BUT, I think I should get around to talking about "Fear of Fours." I actually bought this CD about 2 months ago, even though it wasn't yet available in the US, because I was all excited that Lamb had a new album. I NEVER buy import albums, by the way. I figure if Sony Entertainment doesn't think I'm ready for some music from another country, I should wait until they say it's OK. I just want to point out that this was an EXCEPTION of MAJOR proportion.
See, I thought, "I can get a jump on all the other reviewers! HAW HAW! Because *I* have the IMPORT ALBUM!" I must say I thought myself quite clever. But then, a flock of procrastination set in, and I never got around to doing the review, and the US release was July 27, and now I am the King of Suck. But I'll be DAMNED if I don't do a review ANYWAYS.
So, "Fear of Fours" has a big-ass HEXAGON on the cover, and everywhere there's lots of hexagons, which is cool because it means Rhodes and Barlow appreciate the fine engineering points of Buckminster Fuller. A good idea! I dunno where the name "Fear of Fours" comes from, or whether is a quote or not. That's usually the kind of thing they have in press releases the record company sends to music editors, but I didn't get no press release, so I'm as much in dark on this one as you folks are.
The music inside is still very Lamb-y. Everything I said above about "Lamb" still goes, but they've mellowed out a bit. The total franticness of "Lamb" has given way a bit to a more continuous, pleasurable, long-term high. There's the same kind of dreamy, freaky lyricism in "All In Your Hands" and "Fly." But I was surprised by some of the really pounding-ass tracks, like "Ear Parcel." Like, think steamy alleys somewhere in Los Angeles in the Future, and people in black body suits. That kind of stuff.
Anyways, check out Lamb! "Fear of Fours"! Lamb is still good for SEX. If you're still skeptical, Here's some good links to Lamb stuff on the Web:
- A cool Lamb fan site
- Lamb official page, with downloadable tracks and shit.
T O P S T O R I E S
The Once & Future King of Dust
Only The Onion could have acquired Infowarts. (More...)
Another Nobel Prize-Winning Author Describes Drunkenness
This book won a Pulitzer Prize. Here's its famous paragraph on getting drunk... (More...)
'Why I'm pretty sure JD Vance had sex with a couch'
True or false? The answers await us in that magical land where all truths are revealed -- the internet. (More...)
In 2010 Dr. Cheng-Huai Ruan discovered a way to cause a patient with an abnormal heartbeat to get back into a normal rhythm by sticking a finger up the patient's ass. (More...)
WKRP in Cincinnati aired from 1978 through 1982. Howard Hesseman played Dr. Johnny Fever, a DJ from Los Angeles who was fired from his previous job for saying the word "booger" on the air. In the show Hesseman would do some dialogue, introduce a song, and start the song. You'd hear a few notes, but never the whole song. (More...)
SF Hippies Can't Get Their Act Together
The annual 420 Hippie Hill event in Golden Gate Park, where large crowds of hippies, wannabe hippies, and hippie poseurs drape themselves in tie dye t-shirts and gather on a hill on 4/20 to smoke weed, was cancelled this year because the organizers couldn't get their act together. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
My dear and close friend, Porn Maven Shannon Mariemont, sent me a titillating message the other day about her new project: the PornOrchestra. Her desire, at most, is to reinvent the porn soundtrack and, at least, to receive a cease-and-desist order like all her cool friends did last year. (More...)
The Deep Dark Underbelly of the Star Wars Myth, or Ramayana Remembered
It's a fact: Star Wars is a blatant plagiarism of an ancient Asian legend, and the long lines of devout Star Wars freaks are really unscrupulous Asian copyright busters. From Indonesia to Thailand to Nepal, videos are available for sale or rent before they're even released in the US and UK due to this nerdy camcorder-clutching bunch. (More...)
Poor Metallica. All they want is to continue to put out the same weak "Heavy Metal" they've been churning out since the "And Justice For All" days? and make gooey wads of cash in the process. The problem is, people aren't buying their bound for the heavy metal scrap heap, over-produced, uninspired, tired crap. And let's face it, their various commercial endorsements won't pay for the lifestyle they've become comfortably accustomed to. Resorting to lawsuits makes perfect sense, when you need spending money. But just one lawsuit isn't going to pay their bills. So, to aid Metallica, I've composed an open letter to the boys in the band, with suggestions as to whom else they might sic their lapdog lawyers on... (More...)
Paranoid Strippers & Psychotic Crack Dealers (Tales of Christmas Eve)
Christmas day, for the last 17 or so years has bored me. I find that the real fun and excitement always takes place on Christmas Eve. Every other year, it's the excitement of the metaphorical hunt instead of the kill. Otherwise, it's just plain bad craziness. (More...)
Experimenter is a film released in 2015 starring Peter Sarsgaard. It tells the story of Dr. Stanley Milgram's life, including the infamous Milgram electric shock experiment, tests on crowds, and his work developing a theory on the mechanics of social networks. It currently streams on Netflix. (More...)
The Ancient and Correct Sake Ceremony
Many Americans have learned to appreciate the delicate, sophisticated flavors of Japanese food and drink, along with the beautifully refined rituals of Japanese dining. San Francisco, as a gateway between East and West, has especially benefited from the flowering of Eastern consciousness in America. It is hardly possible to walk down the street without stepping on somebody's sushi. (More...)
