FLOTUS ranks as one of Lambchop's most confounding to date, an album whose form and content are united in intimate, private purpose, but which may well turn out to be one of their best and most accessible.
FLOTUS fits surprisingly neatly into Lambchop’s catalog, capturing what makes this band so special and hinting at new directions it might take in its next two decades.
FLOTUS’ parts make for a mixed bag, but their sum is an entrancing and contemplative experience.
While FLOTUS may be Wagner’s calmest collection of music to date, his foray into a new genre is far from a safe bet. Full of meditative wisdom that he adds to his genre-blurring work, FLOTUS contains a restless energy that frequently surprises.
What should continue to draw longtime Lambchop fan in to FLOTUS is the fact that Wagner's songwriting, lyrics and arrangements remain as strong, insightful and clever as ever, making nary an eye blink at Wagner's odd journey into new musical dimensions.
It's a nocturnal-sounding affair--with the spectrally moody title track, the bleepy poetry of Writer and the Kid A vibes of JFK. Taken together, FLOTUS is a beautiful thing.
Flotus is a calm, cumulative album about lasting love, unfussily filtering ancient through modern.
FLOTUS is highly processed, highly textured--and yet for the most part, it sounds surprisingly natural and unforced.
It plays out like a counterpoint to the wracked alienation of Bon Iver’s recent Auto-Tune-heavy 22, A Million, filled with warmth, wistful nostalgia and soft, autumnal light.
As the album progresses, it becomes apparent Lambchop are keen to evolve and take risks, 30 years into their career. The delicate alt-country never fully rescinds, but Wagner’s vocals take on another dimension entirely.
‘Flotus’ is long, initially challenging and is clearly an experiment, but never is it alienating in the way some experiments can be.
FLOTUS is as lush and gorgeous as any of Lambchop’s past work, sometimes floating by with the luxurious chill of hotel lobby music, but never losing its sense of direction.
A dozen records deep in their career, we find Lambchop at their most adventurous, and it sounds wonderful.
When it works (and that's most of the time), FLOTUS proves the wisdom of risk-taking over crowd-pleasing complacency.
FLOTUS is much more than another genre effort, where Wagner deeply alters his usual country bearings and gives it a new and unexpected orientation.
Two decades on, Lambchop are not only still able to surprise listeners, they're doing some of their best work at the same time, and FLOTUS is an unexpected triumph.
FLOTUS might be an experiment, but if it turns out to be the template for Lambchop’s future output then that would be no bad thing.
In their collectedness, Lambchop’s albums often come off as minor masterpieces — not quietly stunning but aesthetically proclamatory, carrying material enough for a listener to stay with and dwell on. FLOTUS is no exception.
Their new record, FLOTUS, is a hard left-turn back into experimental territory ... a weightless but propulsive collection of ambient-leaning rock music, featuring heavy use of treated vocals from Wagner.
When an album is bookended between two potential song of the year contenders with little to grasp in between, it’s difficult to really get too invested in this record.
The comparison has been made before but it bears repeating. This is what Bon Iver's 22 A Million wanted to be. An avant-garde, atmospheric, ethereal beauty to get lost in without any of the glaring, on the nose indications that what you were listening to was, in fact, weird. It is a stone-cold modern electronic classic.
"I wAs lIstEniNg t0 Lo-fI beAts bEfoRe iT waS cOoL!"
Okay, but really. I've had a less than favorable history with Lambchop as a band. Mostly because their sound wasn't something I was looking for when I was younger. Giving this a spin was right what I needed in the moment and (to some extent) right now. It's extremely uneventful, sparse and quiet and somehow that's the best thing about it! It is pretty breezy not too impressionable like most of their work. It's also noticbly focused ... read more
Lambchop dive headlong into the most bizarre example of vocal treatment this side of Bladee - and this is only the first of a number of reasons the album shouldn't work.
The lyrics are odd (even by Wagner's standards), the album is ridiculously long and one toned and is bookended by two quarter of an hour long tracks - plus most of these songs have a very loose regard for song writing convention.
The thing is, it just works, ending up both substantial and inviting. A cult classic in the ... read more
1 | In Care of 8675309 11:51 | |
2 | Directions to the Can 3:32 | |
3 | Flotus 3:29 | |
4 | JFK 5:32 | |
5 | Howe 4:05 | |
6 | Old Masters 4:43 | |
7 | Relatives #2 5:25 | |
8 | Harbor Country 3:26 | |
9 | Writer 3:41 | |
10 | NIV 4:35 | |
11 | The Hustle 18:12 |
#4 | / | MOJO |
#7 | / | The Atlantic |
#9 | / | Fopp |
#11 | / | Slant Magazine |
#17 | / | musicOMH |
#17 | / | The Times / The Sunday Times |
#19 | / | Uncut |
#28 | / | Diffuser |
#31 | / | American Songwriter |
#34 | / | The Guardian |