How I Quit Smoking

Alternative Press - 5 - Supreme - "...a work of timeless grace and stately beauty. A remarkable achievement which could have been just as easily recorded in the 1950s or '60s as the '90s." NME - 8 (out of 10) - "...This is...ambient country--a mellow twang, a soft brush shuffle and a mumbled vocal that makes Tindersticks sound like Whigfield....Kurt Wagner's warm, mumbled vocals act as a blanket....it's all very Raymond Carver..." Melody Maker - Recommended - "...a real curio, unearthly little gem....very much rooted in the paranormal landscape of USA today. Their songs are awkward, strangely disturbing filmic situations which take heed of certain country traditions...but refuse their conservatism and update their logic..." Melody Maker - Ranked #27 on Melody Maker's list of 1996's `Albums Of The Year.' Q - Included in Q's "Best Alt.Country Albums Of All Time" - "...Sounds like it was produced by David Lynch....taking the classic elements of country music and boiling them down into something light years away fromt he Nashville mainstream..." Mojo - 5 stars out of 5 -- "[S]uperb....'The Militant' is a masterpiece of menace..." Uncut - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he addition of a wistful Uillean pipe sound lent a pastoral Anglo/Celtic tone to a few songs, while John Mock's sleek string arrangements gave a deceptively sentimental sheen to much of the album."

Lambchop hails from Nashville and claims to play a "refined, and redefined" style of country music, but the songs the band creates on its second album, How I Quit Smoking, have more in common with Brit crooners the Tindersticks than Chet Atkins and Billy Sherrill (whom the Lambchop members claim as heroes). Boasting 13 players on this album, Lambchop feels more like an art collective on a mission of enlightenment than a country band bent on AM airplay. Still, with subtlely threads of clarinet, sax, organ, and even a full string section integrated into the mix alongside a double-necked lap steel and an impressive lineup of vintage guitars, the music is so lush, lovely, and thoroughly hypnotic you can see their point. The country element lies buried in the subtle rhythms and melodies, surfacing in the quiet moan of the lap steel or the melancholic flutter of the strings. Spooky as often as it is soothing, Lambchop's music may not be the fireside countrypolitan of Atkins or Sherrill -- I don't think either would put up with the babbling rhymes of "Smuckers," the sinister guitars that mark "The Militant," or the existential undercurrents of "The Scary Caroler." But this is music that will lull you to sleep like a cup of Sleepytime tea as much as it will give you dreams to remember. ~ Kurt Wolff|