Lambchop: Punching the Clown review – spectral, spellbindingly ambiguous stirring of US history

<p><strong>(City Slang)</strong><br>Sounding weathered but undimmed, Kurt Wagner feels as if he’s standing right in front of you as he sings superb, choir-swathed songs that invite and unsettle</p><p>Thirty-two years on from their debut album – and 26 from <a href="https://www.nme.com/reviews/reviews-nme-1852-329268">Nixon</a>, the gorgeous country/soul confection that brought “Nashville’s most fucked-up country band” to a wider audience – Lambchop find themselves in a curious position. Their sole continuous member Kurt Wagner has displayed an admirable disinclination to rest on his laurels. He followed up Nixon with the austere, piano-driven <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/6rgb/">Is a Woman</a> and subsequently diverted into electronics, smothered his voice in Auto-Tune and distortion. Their last album, 2022’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/oct/02/lambchop-the-bible-review-the-weight-of-the-world-with-kurt-wagner">The Bible</a>, threw up everything from house music to glitchy rhythms to ambient drift to accompany Wagner’s pained ruminations on mortality and faith.</p><p>Throughout, Lambchop have kept up a remarkable level of quality control that’s meant they’ve ended up being slightly underrated or at least taken for granted. There’s been no career-defining crossover hit, no unexpected viral success, no foundation-shaking disaster followed by an attention-grabbing return to form; just a stream of really good albums and positive reviews. It’s the kind of steady success that’s hard to maintain but easy to overlook in an attention-deficit economy.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/aug/20/lambchop-punching-the-clown-review">Continue reading...</a>