Lambchop

Is a Woman (Merge)

A A A Comments By Kimberly Chun Thursday, Apr 11 2002

In the '70s, "countrypolitan" artists such as Charlie Rich fused traditional country with strings and R&B in an attempt to woo upwardly mobile Southerners. The modern-day ensemble Lambchop shoots for a poorer, hipper audience, dusting off soul chestnuts, twanging up indie rock fare and singing about bad LSD trips. On the Nashville band's sixth album, Is a Woman, Lambchop embraces countrypolitan's soft, sentimental style, offering a lovely record that teeters on the edge of monochromatism.

Is a Woman's symphonic neo-countrypolitan stays just this side of snoozeville.

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Unlike countrypolitan's syrupy preoccupations, vocalist Kurt Wagner's songs long for an evaporating time and place more than for any woman. "We all were much younger / Were we really different / In the really real world we knew," he sings on "The Old Matchbook Trick." When he does wax romantic, there's a sly bitterness to his tone, as when he quotes the reggae rhythm from Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry" on the title song and sings, "Is a woman, write this down / Put the paper, over there / More than it is / No more than it is."

While Is a Woman draws inspiration from the immaculate, string-sweetened enterprises of Rich producer Billy Sherrill, the album is also as quiet as 17 musicians can be. Tony Crow's evocative piano tinkles with lounge-lizard authority alongside hand drums on "The New Cobweb Summer," while "Flick" builds on a run of piano notes, a barely audible triangle and the sound of crickets.

Is a Woman is like a shy wallflower: pretty and dependable, but also frustratingly one-note. Often, Wagner's choked, throaty vocals and eccentric lyrics are the only thing preventing the project from sliding into a sleepy, undifferentiated morass. Maybe Wagner needs to break out of his own mold. Even cow-hipsters may get the blues, but their listeners are still entitled to more than one mood.

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