Writing music as catharsis isn’t a new thing by any stretch of the imagination, but sometimes its creators are left with little choice. Kurt Wagner was left completely devastated by the suicide of his fellow musician and close friend, Vic Chesnutt, on Christmas Day 2009. That someone should decide to take their life on what is for many the happiest day of the year is the most cruel of ironies, and listening to this album I couldn’t help but wonder if the timing compounded the grief and misery Wagner felt. Out of all of this, however, he has produced a stunning work. I had never heard any Lambchop material before taking on ‘Mr. M’ to review, but it makes a fine introduction.
Wagner had to write to drag himself out of the existential crisis he faced in the wake of Chesnutt’s suicide, and to address the event head-on would have been far too painful for him, but he can’t help but make reference to it, and the effect it had on him. ‘2B2’ is mournful and delicate, a song about the difficulties he faced when trying to reconnect with the world around him, opening with lines that stop the listener dead in their tracks: ‘Took the Christmas lights off the front porch / February 31st.’ Tackling the deep depression he fell into after his friend’s death, the song is bleak and harrowing, like much of the album.
However, his desires to make a ‘psycha-Sinatra’-sounding album mean that things are never left too stark. The emotions conveyed come through clearly enough, but when offset against lush arrangements such as those heard on lead single ‘Gone Tomorrow’, a song of two halves with its string-driven verses and dazzling instrumental coda, their effect is increased. The album has a heavy heart, but there are some optimistic proclamations shot through it. On the same album that Wagner opines that the good life he has is wasted on him, and able to write such songs as ‘Nice Without Mercy’ and ‘Kind Of’ while audibly struggling to keep his emotions in check, he goes and writes ‘Never My Love’, a song that has genuine redemptive qualities.
Even though the album begins with casual cursing, with Wagner admitting, ‘I don’t know what the fuck they talk about’ on the pointedly-titled ‘If Not I’ll Just Die’, and at times is almost too much (‘It’s the kind of day you never wake up from / A summer’s day has come to mud and rotten’ – ‘Kind Of’) it ends on a hopeful note. Just short of 56 minutes in length, and with most songs hovering around the 5:30 mark, ‘Mr. M’ doesn’t feel rushed; if anything, it opens up on further listens, and on Lambchop’s 11th studio album, and after 20 years in existence, the band are still going strong. In many ways, this album needed to be made, and I’m quite glad that it was.
Mr. M is out now via City Slang, and is streaming in full on The Guardian
Posted by Gareth O’Malley
