Lambchop - The Decline of Country and Western Civilization

What better prelude to a new album than a compilation of A and B sides, alternate versions, and unreleased songs? That seems to be the logic behind Lambchop’s The Decline of Country and Western Civilization, Part II: The Woodwind Years. Released a few months in advance of the band’s new album Damaged, it rounds up a ragtag assortment of tunes in the hopes that they might set you salivating for something new by the Kurt Wagner-led country collective. It certainly has its moments. With its abundance of horns and elements of lounge, the collection certainly places the emphasis squarely on the alternative in the band’s "alt-country" label. Album highlight “Burly and Johnson” plays like a tribal jazz jam with Mac McCaughan’s muted trumpet accompanied by rumbling drums, while “Two Kittens Don’t Make a Puppy” retains the trumpet but dumps everything else in favor of digitized drumbeats and falsetto gibberish. Then there’s the small matter of Wagner’s signature songwriting and delivery. He opens his own “Gettysburg Address” with the masterfully tongue-in-cheek “We hold these truths, to be self-evident/ We drink beer in bars, and act irreverent”, and closes out the crass comedy “Smuckers” by consecutively rhyming mamma/pajamas/drama/comma. He manages to wring both humor and emptiness out of a line about shivering testicles in the bleak sentiments and landscapes of “The Old Fat Robin,” and then channels his vulgar turns into a more emotionally tender context in “It’s Impossible” when he sings “You play with it between your knees/With your face at me/Unhurtable.” As good as some of these selections are, songs like “Playboy, the Shit” and “Gloria Leonard,” often sink into a lounge mush, while others, such as “The Scary Caroler” and “The Book I Haven’t Read,” have titles that are more interesting than the actual tunes. Still, as an appetizer for August’s Damaged, an introduction to the band’s brand of quirky country, or as a mere motley assortment of older objets d’art, it works. [www.lambchop.net]