Anyone who’s ever listened to Nashville, Tennessee’s Lambchop knows the last word you’d use to describe them is exciting. Lambchop’s 13 studio LPs are quietly brilliant, but they hardly shoot off sparks–evidently they conserve the electricity for their live shows, as they demonstrate to shocking effect on 2009’s Live at XX Merge.
Lambchop–a rotating cast of collaborators led by frontman/chief songwriter Kurt Wagner that specializes in a dizzying combination of alt-country, soul, chamber pop, and even mutant disco–does so in large part by keeping things upbeat. Only LP opener “I Will Drive Slowly” is standard obey-the speed-limit fare; the soul/country hybrid “The New Cobweb Summer” opens on a sleepy note, but unlike the studio version the one on Live at XX Merge builds to an enthralling climax. I love Lambchop’s lazy pace as much as anybody, but hearing “The New Cobweb Summer” lift off is a revelation.
“Grumpus,” “Your Fucking Sunny Day,” and “Up With People” all work the soul vein, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s heard Lambchop’s loving cover of Teddy Penergrass’ “Love T.K.O.” On the lounge soul number “Grumpus” Wagner abandons his characteristic lyrical opacity–when he tells the song’s protagonist to stop demonstrating his “asinine and callous traits,” you know exactly what he’s talking about.
“Your Fucking Sunny Day” features big horns, telegraphic guitar, and enigmatic lyrics; what is Wagner referring to when he sings “it’s so simple and so stupid”? And when he asks “Are you ready?” you find yourself thinking, “Ready for what?” Meanwhile, “Up with People” is a rousing soul inspirational and call an awakening–over a percolating groove and some very big horns Wagner sings about “a welfare state of the soul,” adding, “We are doing/And we are screwing/Up our lives today.” The music’s pure upper; the lyrics are pure downer. Which makes you wonder if the song’s so inspirational after all.
“Sharing a Gibson with Martin Luther King Jr.” and “National Talk Like a Pirate Day” both come off 2008’s masterful OH (ohio) and are quiet but anything but laid back. They’re lovely, the both of ‘em–tender, giving, big-hearted expressions of sympathy for the bruised, the aching and the misunderstood.
On the former Wagner contrasts the lives of the downtrodden with those of the rich when he sings “In the ghettos of Chicago/Amid the poverty and despair/Inside the game hens/Were the giblets in a plastic bag.” In the latter he sings of a different kind of soul–”In the kingdoms of the well and of the sick/And the hours that it took to think of this/And the road that got the best of you one day/Can you see at all?”
On “What Else Could It Be?” Wagner goes Ed Kendricks in accordance with Soul Rule #2 while a guitar vamps and the horns swell and wane behind him; “Hey Where’s Your Girl?” goes even more horn crazy and somehow manages to bridge the divide between the Velvet Underground and Marvin Gaye.
Closer “Give It (Once in a Lifetime)” is one of the most astounding live performances I’ve ever heard; it opens as a drowsy meditation on the changing of the seasons (“Fall makes me feel a little sad sometimes/Whip out the sweater and the second layer and it’s time for a change”), but ramps up as Wagner speed stutters his way through the line “I guess I should give it a little more time.”
And just when you think the song has crested Lambchop segues into the Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” and poof, every preconception you’ve had of Lambchop flies out the window. Their version has more sizzle than the Heads’ original, and Wagner takes David Byrne’s wide-eyed wonderment one step further. His is a protest against the limitations of being human–he can’t capture the joys and sorrows of being human in mere words and he knows it.
I’ve loved many a Lambchop LP in my day, and I have my favorites. But none of them match the transcendental brilliance of Live at XX Merge. Such albums as OH (ohio), 2000’s Nixon, and 1997’s Thriller might well make you a fan–Live at XX Merge might well change you forever.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A+
