Nixon

1	The Old Gold Shoe 6:21
2	Grumpus 4:19
3	You Masculine You 5:59
4	Up with People 5:59
5	Nashville Parents 5:38
6	What Else Could It Be? 3:38
7	The Distance from Her to There 4:20
8	The Book I Haven't Read 5:44
9	The Petrified Florist 4:52
10	The Butcher Boy 2:54

Barnes & Noble

Maybe Lambchop's name rings a bell for you, and maybe its mention even has you remembering something about quirky, lavishly orchestrated country music. But pay attention, because if that's all you know, you're missing out on the most crucial data. Kurt Wagner. Memorize that name. Years from now, you'll see it pop up in tomes on underrecognized musical geniuses of the late-20th/early-21st century. Wagner is the man behind Lambchop's wonderfully original blend of Bacharachian pop and well-appointed Music City country. With a backing band of 13 musicians for his fifth album under the Lambchop moniker, Wagner continues to rearrange those forms into something that taps into what makes them enduring, yet quietly subverts their sacrosanct rules. Often he does that with his wry lyrics, which reflect a dark cynicism similar to the one plied by fellow pomo country gent (and occasional musical cohort) Vic Chesnutt. "The guy on the cross is holier than I," he croaks, adding, "but then again, he's made from plastic." What at first seems like a rousing inspirational, "Up with People" applies a chorus of gospel singers, all pep and handclaps, to the line, "We are screwing up our lives today." On "What Else Could It Be?" and "You Masculine You," he sings in a falsetto that would be almost Prince-like, if it weren't so deliberately overwrought. NIXON doesn't boldly go where no Lambchop record has gone before, but it finds Wagner continuing to push ever farther away -- no matter how gradually -- from the traditions that inform his music. And it still looks pretty adventurous from here. Jenny Eliscu

All Music Guide

As time went on, Lambchop got a little more musically accomplished, and Kurt Wagner more inclined to write songs that were a little less of a stream-of-consciousness jumble, and a little less random. This will still strike most as a mighty odd record, though. Ostensibly much of this record was inspired by former president Richard Nixon (there is even a suggested reading list of Nixon-related books on the sleeve). But there are no direct references to him, and even any indirect ones are so oblique that you'd never make the connection if the record had a different title (or contained no reading list). Wagner's songs are less of a laundry list of bringdown imagery and a tad more direct than in the past, but still suggestive of, well, the kind of voices and snatches of conversation a schizophrenic might hear and utter. The music? Yes, another incongruous clash of lush orchestrated countrypolitan music and alternative singer-songwriter rock, but the Philadelphia/'70s soul influences are pretty upfront on some tracks. Wagner even adopts a thin, breaking soul falsetto on "What Else Could It Be?" that sounds as much like a satire as an homage. There are some inventive, hard-to-identify, eerie reverberant effects on several tracks, adding a sense of atmosphere even if they're not particularly complementary to the songs or melodies. All of this contributes to the sensation of hearing a radio stuck between a 1990s alternative college station and a 1970s oldies one, without the static. There's still the sense that it's an in-joke outsiders will have a hard time puzzling through, even if it's more approachable than some of Lambchop's previous outings. Richie Unterberger