You are about to hear a collection of some recorded stuff. Some are good. Some are bad. Some are just OK. Turn off the light. Read a book. You are ready.
Those are the words you’re greeted by on the first track on Mr. Oizo’s third real full-length album Lambs Anger: Hun. And it pretty much sums up the album in the most simplistic way. Mr. Oizo has always been the mad professor who was always destined to end up on Ed Banger Records. His eclectic style of completely original electro has always been twisted - to the amusement of his fans ever since Flat Beat became the anthem of every jeans-sporting late 90s hipster.
With Lambs Anger he makes the twisted even more diabolically mind-bending with an underlying ironic horror theme bubbling up among the Thriller-esque basslines, surprisingly varying beats and general electronic craziness. Lambs Anger proved that the French fraudulent gentleman hasn’t lost his edge or his quirky manners that remain equally entertaining. Slightly slightly slightly provocative to the critic/reviewer but nonetheless highly interesting he jerks his way forward in a jaunty manner like a producer who just rediscovered his own brand and what makes it so fun. Through no less than seventeen short tracks he presents sound instalments which to any other producer would seem half-finished or nonchalant in their uncompromising style. The truth is only Mr. Oizo can, and have, made these sort of electronic albums where each part is subordinate to the sum. Another truth is that this formula works even better than before as Mr. Oizo creates his most heavy, danceable and club-oriented tracks in his career. Something that of course made Lambs Anger one of the definite hipster albums of 2008.
That’s not to say that there aren’t tracks that work, or at least could work, well on their own as well. The single Positif frizzy synth-line is as dance-inducing as it is a challenge for the mind to balance out. The inscrutably titled and themed Bruce Willis Is Dead is a faux-trance bass drum-driven horror stomper that works on it own, but doesn’t quite work it for me in the end. Jo is one of the tracks that feature Mr. Oizo’s usual great sense of samples. The sunshine soul feel to it could’ve easily been extended into a quite good single, but as a 2:16 track it’s left undeservedly behind.
Then of course there are the controlled audio junk. Erreur Jean sports Crystal Castles-esque sounds, monitored into a decent electro banger even though lacking any real substance. The low is the Uffie track. Not simply because Uffie on it. But boy, is it a new low for a vocal performance from Uffie or what? And the minimalistic heavy bass/handclaps reel doesn’t really work either. The track Steroids does NOT live up to its name.
The last high point of the album before it is time to round it off is the wicked groove that Gay Dentists gets going in the end. It’s the part where I get up from my chair and get stuffy and the part I’d wish he’d developed into its own track. Until the Patrick 122/Transsexual EP track Blind Concerto, with its haunting organ orgy, closes the album it’s mostly fillers and transports: Pourriture 7 is like a continuation of Pourriture 2, W is a continuation of Z while Lars Von Sen is a completely nonsensical but mood-setting interlude.
Lambs Anger is an album where the parts mean little without the context of their sum. And that’s fine with me because taken on a whole, Lambs Anger is one of the better electro albums to have come out in recent years. It’s fun, dancey and just a little bit exciting. It’s an album that showcases a producer in full control of his own idea of wicked electronic music and the result is cartoonishly marvelous. But still I think Mr. Oizo has a lot more to give. He has the skill and mental condition to create some seriously mind-fucking shiz that is incredibly dope and almost strikingly psychedelic. Lambs Anger is not that album however - but it is his best effort to date to move our minds. The extremes haven’t been reached but I do acknowledge the risk that the result when those are reached might be a bit unsubstantial, unnecessarily kitschy and too conceptual. There’s a balance to be found and if there’s anyone who can find it, it is the much experienced Quentin Dupieux. The question is if the courage and ambition rests within the corrupted heart and twisted mind of Mr. Oizo… There’s only one person who can help him on that quest… Flat Eric…
Mr. Oizo - Lambs Anger
Tracklist
1. Hun (2:12)
2. Pourriture 2 (2:09)
3. Z (4:11)
4. Cut Dick (2:51)
5. Two Takes It (2:22)
6. Rank (1:36)
7. Bruce Willis Is Dead (3:19)
8. Jo (2:16) <— 
9. Positif (2:51)
10. Lambs Anger (1:14)
11. Erreur Jean (2:48)
12. Steroids (2:39)
13. Gay Dentists (3:38) <—
14. Pourriture 7 (3:24)
15. W (2:11)
16. Lars Von Sen (1:23)
17. Blind Concerto (3:21