Best Kept Secrets: The Best of Lamb 1996-2004

by

Lamb

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Lamb is an outstanding trip-hop band. Come on, admit it -- their music is beautiful, polished and textured, and it's a sign of the world's unfairness that people like Celine Dion outsell them. But I digress. "Best of Lamb 1996-2004: Best Kept Secrets" is a surprisingly good look back on the history of... well, one of electronica's best kept secrets.

A lot of "Best Of" albums stagger under the weight of personal preference -- meaning that the fans keep asking "Where is...? What happened to...? How could they not include...?" I didn't feel that way when listening to these sixteen chronological songs. While most Lamb songs are beautiful, these songs do a good job of showing their evolution from rough trip-hop to smooth, almost jazzy electronica.

The self-titled debut was a mix of the epic and rock-y -- "Cotton Wool" and "God Bless" are superb percussion-pop song with some trip-hop edge. "Best of Lamb" starts off dark, but gets... not exactly light, but more upbeat and less sprawling. One exceptional example is "Bonfire," a passionate, sweeping song that perfectly showcases Louise Rhodes' beautiful vocals.

Their style changed even more later on, moving further from their debut and into the realm of purer trip-hop -- less orchestral, less rock-y. "Gabriel" is a pretty song, and "Angelica" a gentle trip-hop-piano melody. They took that sound even further, and it's reflected in the finale of this album -- the trippy "Stronger" and the airy "Wonder."

It's definitely a good place to investigate if you're a Lamb virgin. If you have all four albums, however, it won't yield much that's new to you. But it's also a pleasant capsule look at their evolution as a band -- they started off sprawling and dark, and have (so far) become much jazzier and airier. Some of the song choices are a little obvious -- "Gabriel," for example, which apparently is a hit among romantics.

Lamb will probably never break into the No. 1 slot -- although stranger things have happened -- but their songs remain rich and beautiful, no matter which album you listen to. And as an introduction, either to the band or to albums you don't have, this is a pretty good one.

Despite their dedication to a rabid fanbase and their impressive bounty of exquisite music, Lamb sure can be a hard band to love. After Andy Barlow and Louise Rhodes dropped their sharp, celebrated self-titled debut in 1997, the wait was considerable for 1999's FEAR OF FOURS, and though the shift in sound was different (the organic jazz undertones were pushed to the forefront with the beats mostly secondary), it was a woefully underrated album that I personally feel bested the debut in some ways. In fact, if vocalist Rhodes hadn't somehow morphed from sounding soft and enveloping to sounding like a long-lost member of Alvin and the Chipmunks' sister band the Chipettes, FOF would have been damn near perfect.

Lord knows what precipitated the move towards soft sounds and spackled edges that marred 2001's WHAT SOUND and especially 2003's BETWEEN DARKNESS AND WONDER, but it was probably the band's frequent -- and ultimately fatal -- squabbling that marked the drop-off in songcraft. A recent read of their oft-updated Web site confirms that Lamb is now kaput (although both Barlow and Rhodes are prepping solo material). And so we get a best-of compendium to wrap it all up. It should be a slam dunk. It isn't.

Granted, this is Lamb, and Lamb were superb more often than not. The best moments here -- "Cotton Wool," "Gorecki," "B-Line," "Gabriel" -- are epochal moments that transcend the original tired trip-hop and drum-n-bass tags; although they've never been honoured as such, they're all contributions to dance music in general, and at least as important in legacy as anything by Massive Attack or Moby. There are several other really good songs here, and even at its worst -- namely the BDAW tracks at the end -- BEST KEPT SECRETS is never less than listenable.

But there are simply too many key tracks missing, prompting the question, Who organized the track listing for this album (and who is their dealer)? Sixteen tracks and five of them -- five! -- come from their maligned, uneventful swan song (BDAW). When a band does this it is obvious they are trying to reintroduce material that was ignored the first time (and often with good reason). I have to say, it's pretty thoughtless toward the listener and unfair to the body of work as a whole.

For instance, what good is a Lamb retrospective without "Lusty," which is not only the most intriguing and original track off their debut but also, as most Lamb fans will attest, the most adored? And where's "Softly" from FEAR OF FOURS? It's their hands-down finest slow song and probably the closest they came to a potential crossover hit. Its absence is especially puzzling as it was released as a single (as was "I Cry" from WHAT SOUND, which isn't here either).

I'm also curious who this album is for. The suspect choice of material suggests it was intended as more of a collection of Lamb's most "important" or "interesting" work rather than their best or most popular, which would make it more appropriate for existing fans than newcomers. If this is the case, a couple of rarities would have softened the blow of the missing songs. Lamb had way more remixes than B-sides (some of which were quite stirring), but I would have at least made room for their delicious jazz rendition of "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes." Canadian fans like myself would also have found the addition of "Written" a nice treat, as it was needlessly omitted from our pressings of WHAT SOUND.

Alas, it's hard to recommend BEST KEPT SECRETS when modern technology can assist you in making a best-of that is so much more. I feel bad making such a statement regarding an album by one of my favourite bands of all time, but this is such an off-the-mark representation of Lamb's successes that I really feel compelled to tell any curious purchasers about what BEST KEPT SECRETS should have been.

My dream track listing (for anyone who cares):

1. Lusty

2. Cotton Wool

3. Trans Fatty Acid

4. Gorecki

5. Little Things

6. B-Line

7. All In Your Hands

8. Softly

9. Fly

10. What Sound

11. Sweet

12. Heaven

13. Gabriel

14. Til The Clouds Clear

15. Written

16. The Night Has A Thousand Eyes