Lambchop are a lot like one of those little puzzles that you’ll find on your table at hundreds of country-styled restaurants that dot the American landscape. They’re challenging, aggravating, and ultimately entertaining. Lambchop is often described as a “country” band, but only ‘cause they come from Nashville…truth is, there’s more soul than cornpone, more baroque romanticism than redneck angst in the signature Lambchop sound. The band’s tenth album, OH (ohio), presents a different perspective on the same finely-crafted portrait.
With the band’s ranks held to a mere eight members (from as many as 20), this may be as minimalist a collection as you’ll hear from Lambchop. Frontman Kurt Wagner conceived these songs as solo works, subsequently fleshed out to full band performances, and the result is a stripped-down, albeit still lush musical landscape that is at once both gorgeous and maddeningly hypnotic. Wagner’s oblique lyrics are as inscrutable as ever, bubbling beneath the consciousness to plague your thoughts long after hearing them. Vocals, instrumentation, and production all fit together perfectly, creating an interlocking musical puzzle that will keep the listener involved for hours. (Merge Records, released 2008)
Stand-Out Tracks: “Slipped Dissolved and Loosed,” “National Talk Like A Pirate Day”
Review originally published by Blurt magazine
Lambchop
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