Like most of the Nashville band’s catalog, Lambchop’s dreamily diffuse 2008 album is comfortable to sink into but stubbornly resistant to decoding. Yet we still hang on every delicate word from frontman Kurt Wagner, whose warm, full voice adds newfound wrinkles on the R.E.M.-esque “National Talk Like a Pirate Day.” As always, the lasting pleasure lies in exactly how Wagner’s low-key quirks are absorbed and reflected by the wider ensemble, as on the stark, piano-centered ballad “Please Rise.”
- Bonnie "Prince" Billy & The Cairo Gang
- Howe Gelb
- Giant Sand
- Vic Chesnutt
- Yo La Tengo