Lambchop: The Bible, album review — improvisatory setting and a gospel choir

Named after a book that starts and finishes with the beginning and end of time, The Bible unfolds in a beguilingly unmoored way. The normal structure of verses and choruses that tell us where we are in a song is replaced by a looser, more improvisatory setting through which Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner picks his way carefully in a low-voiced sing-speak. What might be a recipe for confusion or vagueness is given shape by consistently strong music.

Wagner’s Nashville-based band has always had an open-ended feel. Accompanied by a changing cast of collaborators, he has been the only constant member since their 1994 debut. Now in his 60s, he is one of those rare songwriters to become more exploratory in outlook with age. For The Bible he decamped to Minneapolis to work with a pair of younger indie musicians as co-writers and producers, Ryan Olson of the band Poliça and Andrew Broder of Fog.

The appearance of a steel guitar in “Dylan at the Mouse Trap” triggers memories of Lambchop’s Americana roots, although the album takes place in uncategorisable musical space. Reverb-laden piano chords hang suspended in the air as though unwilling to fade into silence. Horns occasionally flare up in optimistic fanfares and basslines bring a supple sense of groove. A gospel choir adds vigorous backing vocals to Wagner’s slow-motion phrasings.

“Little Black Boxes” takes a left-turn into funk with computer-treated vocals, and then another left-turn into electronic music. “A Major Minor Drag” shimmers and sparkles with bells, bass, harp and trumpet solos. Wagner’s absorbingly cryptic lyrics require us to submit to the flow of his thoughts rather than trying to fit them together chronologically. Themes of starting and finishing recur (“His Song Is Sung”, “Every Child Begins the World Again”), set in songs that make each passing moment seem worth lingering over.

★★★★☆

‘The Bible’ is released by City Slang