Lambchop
What Another Man Spills
[Merge]
Rating: 8.3
Lambchop's largely unsung 1994 release Jack's Tulips was one of the most
baffling and unique indie artifacts of the early '90s. It proved these
Nashvillians capable of exploring any polar extremity on the musical map.
As it turns out, some mind- bending discoveries were made along the way.
Awash with warm pop sunshine like "Betweemus" and marked by the influential
drug anthem that the Frogs later appropriated, "So I Hear You're Moving (I
Got Drugs That'll Blow Your Mind)", the album contained the most aurally-
friendly lounge/ jazz/ alterna/ country/ indie/ pop found anywhere.
What Another Man Spills begins in typical Lambchop fashion on
"Interrupted": a guitar flourish with classical overtones flutters its way
through a pocket of silence. Spare multi- instrumentation gently tiptoes
in from behind, creating a hushed, lazy companion for frontman Kurt
Wagner's flat drawl. Here's the Wagner recipe: take one part Tennessee
Ernie Ford, stir in Neil Young's lyrical facility, and add a jigger of
Daniel Johnston dementia. Shake that mixture up and out pours Wagner.
"Scamper" is a standout example of how Lambchop's ingrained pop
sensibility can lend credibility to a song about life with an incontinent
old woman: "There's a closet full of generic adult diapers/ She's very old
with a bladder/ Everything's soaking wet/ You're outside sucking on a can."
On "Shucks" some rousing barrelhouse piano dances over the faint echo of
the guitars and muffled trumpet. "Give Me Your Love" is, amazingly enough,
a Barry White dance groove with castrati-like Bee Gees harmonizing.
Each musician in Lambchop makes indispensable contributions to the overall
sound. In traditional Southern- rock fashion (Molly Hatchet, Lynyrd
Skynyrd), Lambchop corrals enough band members to be eligible for its own
zip code. Of course, the main difference is, Lambchop's dozen or so members
aren't all lead guitarists. The real miracle here is how this bevy of
accomplished multi- instrumentalists manages to employ their talents in a
way that's not obviously showy or gratuitous.
Songs like "The Saturday Option" are as close as Lambchop comes to a
"signature" sound: lap steel guitars brush against tinkling xylophones;
vibraphone, cello, tuba, and delayed six- string guitar parts float
unobtrusively around each other. The deliberate, almost subliminal chord
changes create a steady current that carries the songs gently along. Of
course, the plaintive weeping of the lap steel gets them pigeonholed by
some as being a "country" band. Yet defining Lambchop's sound is about
as futile as attempting to extract meaning from a Gertrude Stein novel.
And unlike Stein, Kurt Wagner seems incapable of uninteresting nonsensical
turns- of- phrase. Lambchop, as always, still manage to befuddle the
critical establishment, and escape any sort of convenient categorization.
-Michael Sandlin