As he has never had a show in Dallas, my ony exposure to Lightspeed Champion prior to picking up this album was our own DBF’com’s prodigious level of love aimed at Dev and Company. I had sampled a couple of the MP3s from this blog and watched his SXSW acoustic performance, all of which I loved as well. If you can call DBF’s coverage of Lightspeed Champion hype, LC is likely the most hyped artist on this blog. At any rate, these accolades are deserved – certainly as far as Falling off the Lavender Bridge is concerned, because this album certainly lives up to the “Lightspeed-Champion-is-awesome” hype around here.

Simply put, this album is beautiful. The delicate arrangements, lush strings, rich layers, crisp production value, and wonderfully done vocals all combine to make a gorgeous record. At some points the songs may be a little too poppy for some, and admittedly, the record is a little slow in parts, but these are minor flaws – if you can even call them flaws – on a solid record, top to bottom. The biggest detraction for this record, for me at least, is the lyrics. At times, Dev almost smacks you in the face with his overly obvious word choices, and some lines are downright cringe-worthy, as in the otherwise superb Let the Bitches Die where he explains how the subject of the song “will lick and kiss their necks until they cum down his throat”. Yech. But at other times, the lyrics are thoughtful and really well done, so, again – minor complaint.

Anyways, the music and journey of this album takes you all over the place – from the wonderful hooks of Galaxy of the Lost to the delicate string arrangement of Devil Tricks for a Bitch to the driving mandolin of Let The Bitches Die. Lavender Bridge is overloaded with really well done tracks, but none rise to the level of Dry Lips, a song which starts off in an exceptional way, but then absolutely explodes for the refrain in the last :45 of the song. Everything about that song is nearly perfect and really is a credit to Dev’s songwriting ability. I’m not going to talk this record to death, so click the “Falling off the Lavender Bridge” link below to purchase the album and hit the “Lightspeed Champion” link in our tag cloud and you will find many posts about him and can sample a couple of his tracks on those other posts, but I’ll link to just one:

Lightspeed Champion – Dry Lips – From Falling off the Lavender Bridge

Daigle Rate = 89

Lightspeed Champion is currently on an extremely brief US tour, so go grab a show if at all possible. And if you dickheads do manage to be able to see him, I’m jealous because he still isn’t slated to come to Texas at all.

June 17 – Chop Suey – Seattle, WA
June 18 – Doug Fir Lodge – Portland, OR
June 20 – The Independent – San Francsisco, CA
June 21 – Troubadour – Hollywood, CA
June 22 – The Glass House – Pomona, CA