01. Traveler's Observation (Bob Swanson/Barbara Mauritz) - 5:05
02. Adventures Of The Incredible Mr. Sandman (Barbara Mauritz) - 2:35
03. In Dreams (Bob Swanson/Barbara Mauritz) - 5:35
04. Barbara's Soul II (Bob Swanson/Bill Douglass/Barbara Mauritz) - 5:10
05. The Odyssey Of Ehram Spickor (Bob Swanson/Barbara Mauritz) - 3:11
06. Preacher's Holiday (Bob Swanson/Barbara Mauritz) - 7:54
07. Where I'm Bound (Barbara Mauritz) - 6:57

Personnel:
- Barbara Mauritz - vocals, guitar, tambourine
- Bob Swanson - guitar
- Bill Douglass - double bass
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- Walter Papaport - shepherd
- Diva Goodfriend-Koven - flute
- Robert Hubbard - English horn
- Douglas Blumenstock - cello
- Ed Bogas - viola

Although Lamb started as a duo of Barbara Mauritz and Bob Swanson, it's very much Mauritz's singing that dominates their first album, though both she and Swanson were involved in the songwriting on most of the seven tracks. While Lamb were loosely aligned with the San Francisco rock scene of the early 1970s, A Sign of Change is not so much rock as an unusual hybrid of jazz and folk, with plenty of tinges of gospel, pop, blues, and even classical. Like some combination of Chet Baker, Joni Mitchell, and perhaps bits of Donovan, free jazz vocalist Patty Waters, and Tim Buckley at his most experimental, Mauritz sings dream-like chains of words almost as if they're improvised jazz notes. Sometimes sounding rather like hippie psalms, her poetic interior monologues are set against sad, pretty melodies with plenty of twists and jazzy tempo shifts, the acoustic backing largely relying on Swanson's acoustic guitar and Bill Douglass' bass, though there's occasional chamber-like orchestration. Mauritz has a mighty impressive voice, like that of a blues-rock belter with far more delicacy, her hazily mixed and enunciated vocals adding to the avant-pop mystery even if the words aren't always easy to make out. Those words are abstract enough, with references aplenty to florid natural imagery and dreamscapes, to make listeners feel like they've been dropped into a waking dream of sorts. Occasional phrases, however, penetrate with more cogency, like the rumination "how in the world could there be wars if there were no evil powers" (from "The Odyssey Of Ehram Spickor"). That might give the impression that this is a pre-new age album of sorts, but it's not: it's almost avant-garde in its otherworldliness, the production quite somber and spare. To bring this more to earth, Maurtiz really lets loose with extended jazzy scatting on "Barbara's Soul II," the record's bluesiest cut. She also delivers what amounts almost to an experimental gospel piece on the closing "Where I'm Bound," which unlike the rest of the album features piano, the rhythm and keyboard overtones accelerating almost to the point of storminess by the song's conclusion. --- Richie Unterberger, allmusic.com

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01. Flying (Barbara Mauritz) - 2:35
02. Now's Not The Time (Barbara Mauritz) - 3:37
03. Cross Between (Barbara Mauritz) - 3:40
04. Sleepwalkers (Bob Swanson, Barbara Mauritz) - 5:41
05. Reach High (Jeffrey Cain, Jerry Corbett) - 4:03
06. Ku (Bob Swanson, Barbara Mauritz) - 4:57
07. While Waiting (Bob Swanson, Barbara Mauritz) - 3:54
08. Flotation (Barbara Mauritz) - 4:29
09. Milo And The Travelers (Bob Swanson, Barbara Mauritz) - 6:12

Personnel:
- Barbara Mauritz - keyboards, vocals, producer
- Bob Swanson - guitar, banjo, producer
- David Hayes - bass
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- Jerry Garcia plays - banjo (01), pedal steel (05,08)
- Bill Atwood - trumpet
- Ed Bogus - viola
- Ellen Dessier
- Bill Douglas – bass

Lamb's second album used some far more conventional elements of electric rock production than their starker debut had, which in some ways made this follow-up more mainstream and less striking. On the other hand, the songs themselves were more eclectic, and complemented well by the greater textural depth of the arrangements. Most importantly, the songwriting continued to be as inspired and unusual as it had been on A Sign of Change, and only slightly less abstract, again mixing jazz, folk, impressionistic singer/songwriter rock, gospel, and classical, though in different proportions. Barbara Mauritz's singing continued to be mighty impressive, as sort of a more hushed and nuanced spin on the uninhibited woman rock singers coming to the fore in Californian rock, though with as much bluesy soul. "I'll spin a web of visions with the spider of my mind" she sings on "While Waiting," which is a pretty good indicator of the sort of oblique lyrics that permeate the record. Some of the material sounds decidedly happier than the more haunting tunes of A Sign of Change, approaching earthy country-rock on "Flying" (by far the most normal and accessible song on either of Lamb's first two albums). Gospel asserted itself as more of an influence, too, on cuts like the title track and "Reach High," though the lyrics were far more stream-of-consciousness in their wordplay than they were in mainstream gospel, and the orchestration backing the piano possessed an almost classical ingenuity likewise uncommon in most gospel arrangements. If you wanted some of the more intriguing strangeness of the hauntingly dreaming yet biting jazz-folk of the first album, that was here too, particularly in "Sleepwalkers." Other songs, like "KU," sound almost like the classically-influenced art song territory explored by Judy Collins in some of her late-'60s and early-'70s albums, though with more sensuality in the vocals. David Ackles might be another reference point in how the material and arrangements of some of the more ambitious tracks are, in some ways, more closely tied to classical and theatrical music than to rock, though this was ultimately targeted toward the singer/songwriter audience. Something like "Now's Not the Time," however, isn't easily comparable to anything, coming off like a mix of Native American incantational music with blues-gospel-rock. Like A Sign of Change, Cross Between is highly idiosyncratic yet rewarding music of considerable experimental integrity, and has mysteriously eluded rediscovery and cult recognition. --- Richie Unterberger, allmusic.com

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