Lamb: Fear Of Fours

When Portishead hit it big with a simple formula—down-tempo hip hop featuring haunted female vocals—the opportunistic imitators were only a drumbeat away. Still, who would have expected the flurry of copycats so populous that it was nearly impossible to separate the good from the bad For every Morcheeba, a band that has since proved its worth over the course of two solid albums, there's a negative equivalent such as Mono or Sneaker Pimps, groups so anonymous and uninspired that a second album from either would be an accomplishment in itself. Some may have been initially tempted to cast Lamb—the pair of Andy Barlow and Louise Rhodes—in with the bad, but the duo's self-titled debut almost immediately set itself apart from the rest, even from Portishead. Combining the best elements of trip-hop and drum-and-bass, and bridging the gap between programming and performance, Lamb proved full of surprises. Unlike the plodding percussion of much trip-hop, the group actually managed to trip the listener up with deft time changes and constantly morphing beats. Living up to its initial promise, Lamb has, with Fear Of Fours, further refined its sound without losing its sense of adventure. Including inventive bursts of jazz fusion, no doubt encouraged by the organic interplay of the band's shows, Fear Of Fours finds Barlow and Rhodes navigating a world of their own creation. "Little Things" is a manic jumble of beats, percolating and colliding within a complex rhythm but held together by Rhodes' admittedly Beth Gibbons-esque vocals. "Softly" showcases the duo's slow side, drawing a spooky melody out of minimal notes. While the addition of more live bass and drums, especially on the instrumentals "Soft Mistake" and "Ear Parcel," makes the music more corporeal than most studio constructs, credit must once again go to Barlow for his ambitious vision. Thanks to his diverse and ingenious efforts, Lamb wouldn't be out of place in clubland or coffee houses, as Fear Of Fours is downbeat music devised for the mellow wallflower as well as the mechanized many who crowd the dance floor. The album is closer in execution to jazz than techno or trip-hop, evocative of the elusive human element that escapes so many studio-minded recluses: Fear Of Fours is the kind of quiet triumph that almost always misses the charts, but makes a mark anyway.