Lambchop
Mr. M
(Merge)
Lambchop is one of the great unpeggable bands. Lush arrangements, seriously unhurried tempos and teary-eyed strings create a countrypolitan lustre, but the half-spoken, kind of dead-pan intoned baritone vocals bring to mind everyone from Randy Newman, to Bill Callahan and even, sorry, the Crash Test Dummies. It’s high-gloss and high-concept Americana. Elsewhere, as on the instrumental “Betty’s Overture,” things get very ‘70s TV drama theme-music-y. The songs of frontman Kurt Wagner are less about melodic revelations than the sometimes inscrutable lyric poetry, which may or may not be about such mundane things as making dinner.
