Reviews:

Lambchop's Kurt Wagner is one of the most delightfully confounding talents in contemporary music. Wagner resolutely refuses to be painted into a creative corner by repeating himself artistically, so while Lambchop fits comfortably under the Americana umbrella, there's still a healthy chunk of the band's rootsy charms left uncovered by mere genre tags. And no matter what style the band works in, the level of musicianship and quality of songcraft on each Lambchop album is beyond reproach.

Lambchop's separate-but-bundled seventh and eighth albums, Aw Cmon and No You Cmon, are lush Southern lounge/soul bookends-a far cry from the skeletal piano-and-voice framework of the band's last album, 2002's Is a Woman. Wagner amps up the strings like Jimmy Webb producing Isaac Hayes in the service of songs that simmer like Van Morrison doing demos for Stax Records. Wagner also jettisons his trademark falsetto for a baritone rasp steeped in Nick Cave's cigarettes, Tom Waits' bar tab and Iggy Pop's middle aged reverie, creating a sound as integral to the bottom end as the bass and drums. And Wagner has a lot of fun with the material, as evidenced by the Crazy Horse garage rumble of "Nothing Adventurous Please," the incidental soundtrack homages of "The Lone Official" and "Timothy B. Schmidt" and the sly Mary Tyler Moore theme reference in "The Gusher." Lambchop's sonic identity may be far from consistent, but Kurt Wagner has attracted a huge cult following with his uncompromised vision, and Aw Cmon/No You Cmon are two more sprawling rights that prove he can do no wrong.