Customer Reviews

Is a Woman

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I first heard Lambchop when Radio 1's Evening Session picked up on 'The Man Who Loved Beer' back in '95. It was a beautiful, maudlin almost wounded song which sounded like country music after several million years of evolution. Since then they have been categorised with the alt.country or the Americana movement.
Their last album, 'Nixon' was their masterpiece and was clearly a move away from any kind of country influences. Kurt Wagner was singing in a much higher register and 'Nixon' was full of a gorgeous, glacial soul.
The new album 'Is A Woman' has received some mixed reviews. It is very different from anything they have done before. There are no traces of country and really very few obvious contemporary comparisons. The songs are pretty much all one paced, there are no radio songs, although the title track does chug up a gear half way through. And yet from the first moments of 'The Daily Growl' you feel overcome with awe at this beautiful record. Listening to 'Is A Woman' is like sinking back into velvet cushions and being bathed in bliss.
Lambchop are known for an ever-expanding line-up - heading towards 20 at the latest count - and yet this is an apparently simple record with delicate, minimal instrumentation. The secret surely is that four people in a band make pop music, Lambchop have created a modern symphony.
'Is A Woman' is an astonishing, refreshing, life-affirming work. It is so good it makes 'Nixon' look ordinary. It's hard to single out any track, they are all so obviously parts of a greater whole and the whole is seamless.
This is not alt.country or any other type of country, they'll have to invent a whole new genre for this one.

Another Nixon? Certainly not. The band has deliberately set out to make this a quiet record, and have dispensed with the grandeur that Nixon celebrates. No less magnificent, Is a Woman refrains from its predecessors orchestral splendour, and finds a new sumptuousness in Wagner's rich, gravely tones, accompanied by complimentary but unobtrusive piano and guitar harmonies, This is a side of Lambchop not heard as yet there is no trace of their early country influence it in places more closely follows the blues tradition. Imagine one man at a piano, singing idle reflections, in a dimly-lit bar, as you listen to Wagner tease and caress every word and syllable in his melancholic, yet strangely reassuring way.
The songs pay homage to life's poignant simplicities, with gentle witticisms and lovable self-deprecations. From the obscure to the discernable, this is largely an observational album, of the self and others (note the detectable reference to Vic Chestnutt in Autumns Vicar), life and everything. Is Lambchop a woman? Some might say so, with this exploration of their more delicate, sensitive side. Particularly stunning tracks include the most charming My Blue Wave (when the dog gives you the paw), the wonderfully humorous I Can Hardly Spell My Name, and the gorgeous title track, Is a Woman, with its uplifting reggae twist as climax.
Whether the magic lies in their rustic timbre, Wagner's resonant vocals, or the lyrical beauty of the music, this is a gem. Sit back, and let Is a Woman work its spell on you.

Avoid categorizing this music and simply accept it on it's own terms. This is neither mood music or country music. It IS quiet, but also extremely compelling. The melodies engage you and the spare arrangements draw you in. I am not sure what to tell you it sounds like, but I CAN say that I cannot stop listening to it. It feels intimate and stays with you.

Lambchop is by far one of the most talented musicians around, and this is some of his best work. Every song takes you away to the deepest, darkest places. I never get tired of listening to it. Beautiful. A Masterpiece!!! Highly reccommend.

A stunning, subtle, beautifully dreamy album. Much better than Nixon.

Exploring the dark psyche that is Lambchop's "Is A Woman", I have to ask, like David Letterman, "Is this anything?". Kurt Wagner's inspiring bizarre lyrics sound like they will be the last words spoken from a dying man into an empty amplified drinking glass. The brooding often beautiful and odd music creates a soothing trance-like effect as comforting as a lullaby and as menacing as The Pied Piper of Hamlin coaxing rats from the city. Is this anything? Yes, but exactly what besides beautiful and bizarre, may require a few more spins on the disc player.

If I had to be stuck on a desert island with only one record - this is the one I'd take. Really just a complex masterpiece that keeps the listener enthralled from beginning to end. The brilliance of "Flick" and "The Old Matchbook Trick" prove again how amazing a lyricist Kurt Wagner really is. This is evidence that it isn't always about the notes you play, but those that aren't played which make a song truly great. Don't expect the pseudo-pop sounds of Nixon, Is A Woman gives you that sitting on the back porch, drinking a Pabst kind of feeling.

Just when you think there's no way that Lambchop can turn down the volume again, along comes 'Is A Woman', a release that makes prior Lambchop CDs sound positively deafening. Stripped of many of the atmospherics, the songs are left to stand on their own and they deliver. Kurt Wagner continues to orchestrate beautiful arrangements and his voice is front and center here (no falsetto). Turn up the volume on your hi-fi to appreciate its nuances.

This CD had me hooked from the opener The Daily Growl. While most Lambchop releases are somewhat grounded in a country dynamic (with the exception of the disappointing 'Nixon'), 'Is A Woman' is basically piano and strummed guitar-based. Very lounge-like. Not exactly a new direction, but each of Lambchop's releases have been something of a departure from the one before it. Those who complain that it doesn't sound like 'Nixon' just don't get what this band is all about.

Flick, The Old Matchbook Trick, The New Cobweb Summer and Bugs can take their place among Lambchop's best songs. This is one of their best releases--maybe a notch below 'What Another Man Spills' and 'How I Quit Smoking.'

Listeners whose favorite Lambchop CD is 'Nixon', will likely be disappointed that Wagner and Company chose not to continue the string-laden arrangements that dominated that release.

A grower as the lyrics repay years of attention, the arrangements, wonderful but mature genius rather than off-the-cuff immediately appreciated. Experimental too (don't worry) as evidenced by the recording having been made the usual way before the radical decision was made to strip everything back to the superb piano lines. There is no other album as accomplished as this is in its way simply as it's too great a triumph for any others really, to follow. Hear 'My Blue Wave' and don't expect to get it immediately but later appreciate how radical this is. Radical (in true meaning) is NOT ONLY LOUD_____!"z!! Music like this is not automatically "mood music." That is to utterly miss the point.

A refined, personal recording that one may want to appreciate at a low whisper, emanating sensually from the speakers into one's living space.