Lambchop - Mr. M (Merge, 2012)

Lambchop

Mr. M

Merge

2012

Rating: 8.5 wet britches out of 10

I'd like to think that if it were the 1950s or 1960s, and maybe of Kurt Wagner's lyrics weren't so often oddball, the gorgeous country-tinged chamber pop of Lambchop would be immensely popular.  The band seems like the natural successor of a marriage between Lee Hazlewood, Burt Bacharach, and Leonard Cohen, and never has that felt more true than on "Mr. M."  

This album was dedicated to the band's longtime friend and collaborator Vic Chestnutt, and because of Vic's untimely death you could probably read a lot of sadness into this album.  Then again, you could probably read a lot of sadness into any Lambchop album.  And maybe it is sad - certainly, there seems to be a lot more strings this time and a much more laid-back, subtle approach to the music.  I'll be damned though if I can decipher Wagner's lyrics any better here than in their previous work; he could be talking about Chestnutt or he could be talking about turtles, and my general idiocy when it comes to lyrical subtext is amplified ten times with this group.  

What I do know is this record is absolutely beautiful.  There are no hooks here - it's not going to grab you right away if you are busy doing other things.  This is a classic Sunday morning record, designed to be ingested lying around on the couch, nothing particularly pressing on your mind.  But there is a great reward for taking your time with Lambchop's "Mr. M", as it is likely one of the best records from a band that has continually produced some of the greatest music of the last two decades.