Lambchop: Is A Woman

I once read it’s harder to write something that’s simple yet still remains compelling. Ernest Hemingway’s deceptively simple prose is a prime example of how much can be said with a few choice words. That was my first reaction when I heard Lambchop’s sixth album, Is A Women. I could no longer hear Nixon’s amalgamation of soul and blues with a slight country twinge. I was mildly disappointed that the only thing backing Kurt Wagner’s lounge singer voice was Tony Crow’s piano arrangements. That is until I turned the volume up.

Only after I did that could I fully appreciate the subtle arrangements that the 14-piece Lampchop is presenting to my ears. On “The New Cobweb Summer”, spacy post-rock waves and keyboards are barely hinted at. They fade away as quickly as they come though, just in time for a saxophone line that crescendos to an abrupt stop. Kurt starts to sing again. “Once I had a friend / who had the knack of tossing / his mind around geography / boy you think you have problems.” The saxophone returns again, right before the song ends with a chorus of oo oo oo’s. The mellow piano is the most obvious instrument during the song, but it’s what is just lies underneath the surface that makes it for me.

This is a front porch swing album, something to listen to while barely pushing the swing with the tips of our toes, enjoying the gentle rocking. Maybe when “D. Scott Parsley” came on we might swing a little harder, but not by much. The album then concludes with the title track, “Is A Women”. Some reggae instrumentation briefly enters this song, just long enough for Tony’s piano to finish the album, much like it began.