Lambchop
Is A Woman

THE REVIEW

How can a band of thirteen members make music that's so quiet?
I would really like to ask Kurt Wagner that, who, with his band Lambchop, in 2002 released this masterpiece called "Is A Woman".

Lambchop's secret is knowing how to control silence, bending it to their needs and cleverly dosing it to make their tracks even more evocative. What Lambchop achieves is fundamentally music where sound is subtracted rather than added, where silence itself is a musical instrument and an integral part.
All elements are used sparingly, yet they merge to create a sound that seems to fill everything around it with its strength. The result is something for which any comment may seem superfluous, so difficult is it to describe the greatness of "Is A Woman".

Kurt Wagner's voice, warmer and more enveloping than ever, is that of a soul crooner who, more than singing, recites his stories, and perfectly matches the country, soul, and jazz elements of the band's sound. The progression of the tracks is slow, almost lazy, but with a strong emotional impact, and as you listen, you find yourself almost captivated by such majestic grandeur: it's almost as if, at the precise moment of listening, no other music exists in the world outside that played by Lambchop, so strong is this band's ability to completely absorb the listener.
In "My Blue Wave," it almost feels like you can hear the wind blowing, and Wagner exposes himself, telling his whole story, accompanied by a serene piano backdrop: simply magnificent. "Autumn's Vicar" is also remarkable, more strictly soul, but soul as interpreted by a great indie rock band.

The entire album is of unparalleled quality, with a ray of sunshine peeking through, constituted by the almost reggae title track "Is A Woman," possessing immense class; nonetheless, it is necessary to acknowledge the greatness of the entire work, and it almost does it a disservice to highlight only a few tracks, because the true strength of the album is that all the tracks form an inseparable whole, where each reinforces the others and represents their ideal completion. Unreachable.