Canter Bridge

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In the spiritually searching 1970’s of my adolescence, two men and a guitar burst onto the nascent Christian music scene with an enigmatic one-word label and a strange penchant for lapsing into Hebrew.

These guys were ‘Lamb’. They brought to their musical genre a Messianic Jewish angle that now seems almost commonplace, but which at the time was anything but that. As a teenager, I was taken by the deep currents of biblical ideas, biblical feeling, and biblical language that interpenetrated their music.

Predictably, Lamb had a limited appeal. Perhaps less predictably, they defined a wing of what would become known as ‘scripture in song’ in compelling and suggestive ways. All ‘messianic’ musicians and many plain vanilla Christian singers owe them a debt of gratitude.

The assortment of songs included on this anthology are sometimes poignant. For example, the Song of Ruth still moves the heart decades after its composition and first hearing. ‘Comfort Ye My People’ goes beyond this and is accurately described as haunting. Other entries are whimsical. A few are to be judged as failed, though Lamb as an act was daring and merits kudos.

Lamb was a very find thing indeed. This anthology convinces its listener that this is still true.