Lambchop
Damaged
Release Date: Aug 22, 2006
Genre(s): Indie, Rock, Alt-Country
Record label: Merge
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Album Review: Damaged by Lambchop
Excellent, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 4/5
We are drawn to music that depicts long, dark nights of the soul. From Marvin Gaye's Here, My Dear to Big Star's Sister Lovers and Joy Division's Closer, music fans reserve a precious regard for artists who endure a spiritual or creative breakdown only to somehow emerge brandishing a lucid, harrowing testimony to their despair. Lambchop main man Kurt Wagner went into the band's eighth studio album confronting his own fragile mortality full on.
Based on rating 8/10
After the ambitious sweep of releasing two full albums on a single day in 2004 and creating a collaborative electronic EP with Hands Off Cuba while assembling a collection of singles and rarities in 2005, one can hardly blame Kurt Wagner and his partners in Lambchop for wanting to take on a less challenging project for the group's ninth album proper. And indeed, Damaged is a simpler and more streamlined effort than Lambchop have offered over their last several releases. Damaged is a set of ten elegant tone poems which rarely call full attention to the size and scope of the 15-person ensemble (enhanced with a string section) employed for these sessions.