Lambchop

Lambchop got tagged from the beginning as a country band because it hailed from Nashville, Tennessee, but there’s a persistent gloominess (and preciousness) at the core of plucked acoustic songs that rarely settle long enough for dust to gather. The 2006 album Damaged claimed to take “a mellow Leonard Cohen-like turn,” but none of Lambchop prior—even the biggest-sounding albums with horns and strings aplenty—ventured far from the simplest musical figures and the stark, dry voice of singer Kurt Wagner. The band’s new Mr. M carries itself with a certain old-fashioned grace and dignity, with the lush strings on “If Not I’ll Just Die” or the gentle twang of “The Good Life (Is Wasted)” supplying a pleasant surface for Wagner’s underlying unrest.

Updated 04/19/2012