Brain Lambert 2

The following is a partial re-post of an entry I made back in November.  I’m posting it here and now for those who missed it the first time around and to let you all know that Brian’s debut album Spell for Happiness is currently available at CDBaby. 

“... Emerging as a unique voice from within the exuberant Austin, TX music scene, Brian Lambert began working with musician/producer LC Messinger last year when ‘mistaken as a Jehovah witness, [he] knocked on the door of Crush M Records.’  The synthesis between Lambert’s Americana and Messinger’s ‘KD Lang on acid in a barn yard full of loud animals’ approach is quirky, odd and unsettling.  Which, from me, is a ringing endorsement.

Initially, I wasn’t sure what to make of the sound.  The first track I heard, a demo titled ‘Spell for Happiness’ [which would be re-mixed and issued as the new album’s title track], was an eccentric, blues/folk tune - a stripped down acoustic guitar and vocal - that sounded as though it were pressed on vinyl and played back through an ancient Victrola.  But it grew on me the more I played it.  Which is true of each song I’ve heard since.  As I write this I am listening to Brian’s latest posting at his Myspace page,‘Didn’t Want You to Want Me.’  Again he appeals to past musical styles - in this case late ‘60s Blues Rock ala Hendrix and the Doors - but here Messinger’s production augments basic guitar, base, drum and vocal tracks with a melange of atonal electronica that confounds one’s ability to dismiss this as derivative or to pigeon-hole Lambert as retro-this or that.  

Brian has a very strong, versatile voice.  He describes himself on his Myspace page as ‘A cross between Bob Dylan, Jeff Buckley and David Byrne.’  While this may be accurate, such comparisons are useful more as marketing soundbites than as a complete description of Lambert’s oeuvre.  In truth, Brian has his own fluid and distinct vocal style, one that compliments his unique approach to musical de-&-re construction...”  

Spell for Happiness was produced by LC Messinger and is being released under Messinger’s Crush M Records label.  Other releases from Crush M Records include multiple albums from Messinger’s own solo project When Girls Collide.  WGC CDs and MP3s are available at Amazon.com and iTunes.

S.