Customer Reviews

What Another Man Spills

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the greatest, and it's so weird I can't believe they've made as many records as they have. Swinging easily from 70's cop-show funk to Blue Nile-esque dreamscapes, Lambchop are the coolest band, in the most laid-back way, I've heard in a long time.

this album was my introduction to the extraordinary sound of LAMBCHOP. the first three songs take you on a journey so laid back it is hard to believe the members of this band number close to a rugby team. the cover of CURTIS MAYFIELD'S 'GIVE ME YOUR LOVE'takes you back to the seventies briefly and then the album continues with more of LAMBCHOP doing what they do best. The arrangements are excellent, blending guitar, horns, saxaphone (at times similar to 'Morphine'), steel guitars and strings along with Kurt Wagner's fragile vocals. If not for a couple of the covers it would be a 5 star album. Exceptional.

Lambchop's first two albums I Hope You're Sitting Down and How I Quit Smoking, though completely ignored everywhere at the time of their release, were nonetheless a totally unique combination of satirical (at times coarse) lyrics and soft, though unplanned, orchestral music that sounded like nothing else that had come. It was too virginal to resemble orchestral 1960s pop, but was exactly the opposite of the noisy tuneless grunge dominating the charts.

On buying "What Another Man Spills" I was dissatified after vaguely absorbing it because so much of it appeared to be just retro 1970s soul. First listens revealed none of Kurt Wagner's amazing lyrical insight, and much dense drumming with a 1970s type production that became dissatisfying once I saw the magic behind Lambchop's first two albums and their seemingly random orchestrations.

"What Another Man Spills" really was more upbeat than the first two Lambchop albums, but repeated listening shows that actually this is due to the much greater emphasis on jazz rather than mock-classical instrumentation (vibraphone rather than clarinet, for example). At the same time there was no evidence that Lambchop had given up the spontaneous simplicity from which their first two masterpieces were built. Thus, although "Give Me Your Love (Love Song)" did indeed sound like jazzy pop, Deanna Varagona's otherworldly voice (sounding like it came from underwater), the strings served as an ominous undertoe almost like Kurt Wagner's lyrics on parts of Smoking. "Shucks" showed both the similarities and changes perfectly: the guitars were largely replaced by vibraphones and horns, but the voice and ominous arrangements were still the same. The funky "Scamper" was still oddly dark especially when Wagner sings about a person operated on after a serious accident (or is it??), whilst "I've Been Lonely For So Long" was almost catchy precisely due to Kurt's positively eerie vocal.

"It's Not Alright" was actually catchy but ultimately not so rewarding becuse the tribal rhythms detracted from Wagner's vocals, yet the love-obsessed "Magnificent Obsession" really was Lambchop moving away from folk pretentions and showing really their unique, unclassifiable sound of soft, spontaneous orchestration. Whilst "King Of Nothing Never" showed that the band's soul pretentions really are not valid owing to Kurt's folk-poet vocal style: it could never be mistaken for 70s sould no matter how dense the horns were.

On the whole, an album that may seem like a sellout but is not exactly that. This is a unique band developing in its own way, even if losing some of its obscure quality that made it fascinating.

Never having come across Kurt Wagner's music before this CD was truly an ear-opener, not just to his music but to the whole genre. Tracks 1,2,and 10 are worth buying the CD in themselves - sardonic, ironic, with the most remarkably controlled and eerie orchestration from the rest of the band. An exceptional piece of work

Buy it

This album is a smooth, crisp addition to lambchops reportoire of albums. I was taken aback by the first tracks polished high quality, and the jazz/blues influence uncharacteristic of the previous album.Then track four appears and absolubtly blows you away with its upbeat happiness, powerful strings and wagners falsetto, combining to make an amazing rendition of cutis mayfields classic! I have not listened to much of the album because of these two songs!

Memo to Lamb Chop: Don't quit the day job. This was the first and last CD I will ever buy from lambchop. the music is okay but I couldn't make hide or hare of the lyrics. For the most part the lyrics were mumbled unintelligibly into the background