Best Kept Secrets: The Best of Lamb 1996-2004 [Import]

1. Cotton Wool

2. God Bless

3. Gold

4. Gorecki

5. Little Things

6. B Line

7. Lullaby

8. Bonfire

9. Heaven

10. One

11. Gabriel

12. Angelica

13. Til the Clouds Clear

14. Wonder

15. Please

16. Stronger

Tracks:

Cotton wool
God bless
Gold
Gorecki
Little Things
B line
Lullaby
Bonfire
Heaven
One
Gabriel
Angelica
Til The Clouds Clear
Wonder
Please
Stronger

Amazon.com

Best Kept Secrets, a collection of songs from Lamb's first four records, is a reminder of how exhilarating and shockingly modern their music can be. It's also a crash course on the band's precarious balancing act. When they're in sync, the somber torch singing of Louise Rhodes and the twisted proto-jungle of producer Andrew Barlow make for a delicious combination. The band's self-titled debut trumped contemporaries like Portishead, who built songs around the vocals, while Barlow and Rhodes worked on playing up their stylistic contrasts. It's a tough dynamic to maintain though, as later records like Fear of Fours and especially 2003's Between Darkness and Wonder don't quite get the formula right. Laid out in chronological order, Secrets is just like the band's career to this point: It starts off great, but tails off at the end. This being a "best of," however, you notice it less. "B Line" off Fours, for instance, sounds just fine coming after new classics like "Cotton Wool," and even though tracks like "Angelica" are almost painfully safe, they still kick up a nice ruckus. --Matthew Cooke

Customer Reviews:

Sure Glad I Discovered Lamb.......2007-03-23

Found this group in someones best of list on Amazon. Wow! They are already my 2nd favorite band. Hungry Lucy is #1. A very unique singin voice that works perfectly with the kind of music they generate. Lamb has a fuller sound to them than other electronic music bands. They also have a lighter air about their songs. Great songwriting, varied experimentation, and great sound effects. You get a DVD with this album that is one of the best music DVD'S I've seen. A real enjoyable treat. I hope they are still together. After all I am just discovering them. This is great talent and a real positive buzz.

An explosion of sound.......2006-08-09

Given the fact that I have always loved bands as Portishead and Hooverphonic it is a bit strange to only know find out the brilliance that is Lamb.
Sure I had heard Gorecki and some other songs but they never really stuck. Until I rediscovered them about a month ago.
It started with "till the clouds clear" not only a song with great music but also with great lyrics and interaction between the two.
From there I went back to songs as Gorecki, What Sound and Angelika.
This "best of" gives you a great overview of the weirdness and (dis)harmonies this band uses to create their songs and the way it all blends together perfectly.
Ofcourse people are going to complain that songs are not included ( I really miss "What sound" on this one ) but for the person who would like to have a great compilation of one of the best Triphop bands around : get this one.

The real SECRET is why so many songs are missing..........2005-06-24

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

Ethereal trip hop from the UK!!.......2005-06-06

While walking through the departure lounge of London Heathrow to catch a flight, I heard this beautiful, crystal clear voice set against an ethereal trip hop backdrop. I backtracked and inquired who the artist was and was told it was Lamb.

I decided to get this CD and it is my introduction to Lamb, and a very good one for someone (like me) who was totally unfamiliar with their stuff. There was some stuff that needed repeated plays to get into but well worth it.

Lamb are a trip hop/electronica/drum `n bass duo from the UK, comparable in style to Portishead or Tricky. Their songs are usually musically complicated (`Cotton wool', `Gold', 'God bless', `B Line' for example) but with catchy vocals.

The track that got me, `Gorecki' is a charmer. Other great songs are `Lullaby' (which will NOT send you to sleep, I promise), `Heaven' (lilting song that about takes one there), the beautiful instrumental `Til the clouds clear', the hypnotic sounding `Wonder', `Please' (a gentle ballad sung in a pleading voice), and my favourite, `Gabriel', a lush dramatic number with jazz flourishes, comparing one's lover to the angel Gabriel.

Accompanying each track in the booklet are personal notes on the making of/inspiration behind/etc each track, which I found to be a real treat.

There is an accompanying bonus DVD with 7 videos (6 of which are tracks featured on this CD).

This aint the best.......2005-03-08

If I had done this compilation I would have made the track listing look like this.

1-God Bless
2-Trans Fatty Acid
3-Gold
4-Gorecki
5-All In Your Hands
6-Bonfire
7-Lullaby
8-One
9-Sweet
10-Scratch Bass
11-Wonder

The Best Kept Secrets: The Best of Lamb 1996-2004

Average customer rating:

Best kept
Best Kept Secrets indeed...
Best trip hop jazz fuision folk groups around!!
Save your dough, buy something, anything else...

The Best Kept Secrets: The Best of Lamb 1996-2004
Lamb
Manufacturer: Umvd Import
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Drum & Bass | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

General | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

Trip-Hop | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

General | Dance Pop | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

Acid Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

Adult Alternative | Pop | Styles | Music

Alternative Rock | Imports | Stores | Music

Dance & DJ | Imports | Stores | Music

Jazz | Imports | Stores | Music

Rock | Imports | Stores | Music
ASIN: B000222XHY
Release Date: 2004-05-25

Tracks:

Cotton Wool
God Bless
Gold
Gorecki
Little Things
B Line
Lullaby
Bonfire
Heaven
One
Gabriel
Angelica
Til the Clouds Clear
Wonder
Please
Stronger

Tracks:

Cotton Wool [Multimedia Track]
God Bless [*][Multimedia Track]
Gorecki [*][Multimedia Track]
B Line [*][Multimedia Track]
Gabriel [*][Multimedia Track]
Sweet [*][Multimedia Track]
Wonder [*][Multimedia Track]

Customer Reviews:

Best kept.......2004-12-10

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.

Best Kept Secrets indeed..........2004-06-19

I listened to Lamb for the first time a long time ago (1998-9), for the first and only time I saw their "B-Side" video on MTV. Back then it was one of the coolest things for me, the video and the song. Unfortunately this type of music isn't very popular in Mexico when groups like Portishead, Massive attack and Tricky are practically unnoticed. Since I'm a big fan of their music, I actually own all of the other CDs, but I couldn't resist on buying this one to get the DVD with their videos... Money well-spent

Best trip hop jazz fuision folk groups around!!.......2004-06-16

I discovered lamb about four years ago,what a suprise a strange fuision of jazz,folk,eletronic and triphop.Great vocals with tons of emotion If you like Billie Holiday,erikha badu,portishead,triky and etc,you will find lamb to be a journey of soul that in it's self is orginal.One of the best groups this decade,Very Under Rated!!!

Save your dough, buy something, anything else..........2004-06-15

This group has been overrated by many, and I've been conned. The only great song is Gabriel and the video Sweet is cute, and the rest ranges from mediocre to hit-the-skip-button. This is after 8 listens trying to like them. Do try Mandalay's Solace instead.