"Touchdown Jesus” is Brian Lambert’s most recent single. The Denton, Texas artist advances his brazen, serial album rollout with a song that smashes through the gates with guitar grit and lyrical gut punches. It shows that getting up close and personal with the messy, beautiful business of being human can be a triggering, terrifying but ultimately necessary act.
After the slow-burning longing of “Just Breathe” and the smoldering energy of “Take This Heart,” Lambert’s most recent single takes a turn for the edgier. “Touchdown Jesus” has some swagger to its step. There’s a certain cockiness exuded, an almost defiant posture. But behind the distortion-doused riffs and snarling vocals lies a story of internal conflict, miscommunication, and the tireless battles nobody sees.
There’s a wry tension all over this track. Lambert teeters on a tightrope between corrosive sarcasm and heart-breaking honesty, and the effect is of a lead character trying to hold on while the world, as he perceives it, ignores him. It’s a song for anyone who has ever smiled through the static, shouted against the silence, or found themselves through a repeating identity.
What makes “Touchdown Jesus” stand out isn’t merely its raw sound, although fans of punk and shoegaze will find much to like, but its emotional depth. Lambert gives you a mood, a moment, and a deeply confessional narrative wrapped in anthemic wrapping. This is music you feel in the chest when the vibrations punch you in the chest, and at the same time, you feel seen.