Search - Lambchop :: Damaged (Dig)

Lambchop's latest masterpiece

Stephen Doig | New Zealand | 08/25/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It may take a few listens, but Lambchop's new album soon reveals it's true worth.



Damaged is a beautiful, understated set of string-laden pop songs capable of blissfully taking you higher, whilst also quietly shaking the very foundations of your existence. Does that description sound a little overdramatic? Let me assure you - it's not. Even by Kurt Wagner's high songwriting standards, this really is masterful stuff. At 10 songs (48 minutes), Damaged is relatively concise for a Lambchop record, and yet the songs themselves almost audibly breathe, such is their unhurried, elegant nature.



This time out, Kurt Wagner's songwriting output has taken on a greater sense of urgency, depth and focus. Understandable, given that the Lambchop frontman had to have a piece of his jaw removed after discovering a bitterly hostile cyst, and shortly thereafter survived another serious brush with cancer. It's still a subtle shift, but compared with past Lambchop releases, the lyrical content of Damaged feels like it's less about the external influences surrounding Kurt Wagner and more about the songwriters own mind and body. Observations on mortality, identity, sex, and loneliness feature heavily. In the past I've tended to get the gist of what Kurt Wagner is saying rather than the exact translation and I've tended to feel Lambchop's music more than I do understand it. For me, Damaged is the first Lambchop record in which the words, as well as the typically wondrous music, really do, consistently, strike a chord.



Listening to Damage is like that tingling feeling you get when sudden warm currents of air flow soothingly around your skin on an otherwise crisp autumn day. Poignant, evocative, and surprisingly pleasurable - and for one unexpected moment a nice reminder of how good it is to be living.



Highlights: Paperback Bible, Prepared (2), Crackers, Fear



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Less idiosyncratic Lambchop = a superb release

Niall | San Francisco | 09/12/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Damaged only has 10 songs, but the result is the first Lambchop release that you actually wish didn't end so soon. Previous CDs have tended to be overlong, bordering on tediousness and somewhat same-sounding. Don't misunderstand me, their back catalog is impressive and Lambchop is a great, unique band, but it can be a chore to listen to many of their full length releases from start to finish. Not this one.



A sense of sadness permeates this release. Kurt Wagner's lyrics are more direct, more personnel, easier to decipher. In spite of his recent sickness this is easily his best vocal performance to date. The music is also less eccentric, more straightforward. Wagner's orchestration skills are accomplished. I'm glad to report that after last year's overambitious and overly pristine double album Lambchop is making the best music of its career.



If you've never heard Lambchop, this is as good a place to start as any."

A righteous piece of music

gonzobrarian | 12/26/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This'll probably come as no surprise to Lambchop fans, as Damaged seems to be yet another cloudy-skied, country-tinged orchestration of epic proportion. Sure, it's commonplace to describe any old rock & roll band and their records as an experience in-and-of-itself, yet I'm not ashamed to say this of Lambchop's Damaged. If you know anything of Lambchop, the band is immense, a family that can coalesce, appear right out of the woodwork and produce some stunningly soulful, dark, melodic as well as lyrically complex alt-country music that the masses will probably never hear. It may take awhile to grow on you, but the content on this album can be quietly raging at times, soulfully indifferent at others, and blissfully serene in-between. Personally, I'd like Kurt Wagner's voice to be a little more forceful, but the dreamlike musicianship and orchestration carry his vocals like a breeze through a summer afternoon.



The horns subtly rumble like gathering stormclouds, the guitars are hauntingly, piercingly sublime, and the percussion low and slow, carries the songs right on through. It's as if it's a musical equivalent of a sweet sounding semi-truck driving past on a rainy day, giving you the comfort that you're not completely isolated. Listen to Crackers, The Letter P, I Would Have Waited, and Beers Before the Barbican, which has to be the best song title ever; these are the standouts and are just plain masterful. Damaged is a haunting album that should be savored in the quiet moments.

"