After blending country, soul, smoky jazz, and the wonderfully eccentric lyrical observations of singer-songwriter Kurt Wagner for more than a decade, Lambchop add a rich new layer of atmosphere on
Damaged. Now, no fewer than four members of the band's ever-shifting roster are credited with electronics, including the duo Hands Off Cuba -- also collaborators with Lambchop on a recent EP -- who tweak several tracks here with their glitchy samples and bridge the songs with evocative interludes. But no less important to the album's sound are the warm string arrangements, the careful dollops of trombone and steel guitar, and the cascading piano solos, all wrapping themselves around Wagner's near-whispered croon with results as hauntingly hushed as 2002's
Is a Woman. If
Damaged lives up to its title with a flaw on the surface, it's that the expansive first track, "Paperback Bible" -- possibly a wry ode to eBay, with Wagner searching for and selling back a used copy of the Good Book -- is such a delectable taste of Lambchop's latest sonic recipe that it's hard to follow. Yet many of the songs live up to its promise, from the cocktail-jazz waltz of "Prepared [2]" to the almost-spoken-word finale, "The Decline of Country and Western Civilization," where a cranky Wagner casts a withering glance at the musical culture around him, saving special disdain for the "pitchfork I-rock saviors." Wagner notes on another track that "it seems impossible / To understand a man like me" -- perhaps acknowledging his often cryptic way with words -- but the real reason Lambchop won't ever be mistaken for Nashville's more mainstream product is that this band's imagination so gleefully disobeys all the usual musical boundaries.
