Possibly one of the most soulful albums of 2000, Lambchop's Nixon is proof that the group has been building to an opus: this is it.

Sporting the band's most robust lineup to date (13 group members and 4 additional musicians, not including the Nashville String Machine), Nixon builds on the Curtis Mayfield-influenced What Another Man Spills, filling in the cracks of your stereo speakers with rich, highly texturized tones.

Lambchop has long seen themselves as the saviors of country music: every album's liner notes quietly urges the listener to visit the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. While this mission of theirs might normally send people who are allergic to pedal steel guitar running, there is no need to fear. Nixon contains songs of triumph, despair, love, and anguish. Lead singer Kurt Wagner does not wail on about the loss of a girl. Playing a song on this album backwards will not get you back your girl, your house, your car, or your dog. All you have here are some decent tunes, full of soul and life.

In my opinion, Nixon was one of the most overlooked albums of 2000. It was a critical favorite, and yet Lambchop is still primarily unheard of, which is a shame because these people are putting out some of the finest sounds your ears would be lucky to hear.

Rating: 5 out of 5. Your instructions, dear noder, are to pick up this album, turn the lights low, pour yourself a bourbon on the rocks, and merely savor this music. Anything else would be pedestrian.

Track list:

  1. The Old Gold Shoe
  2. Grumpus
  3. You Masculine You
  4. Up With People
  5. Nashville Parent
  6. What Else Could it Be?
  7. The Distance From Her to There
  8. The Book I Haven't Read
  9. The Petrified Florist
  10. The Butcher Boy

P.S.: The content of the album has very little to do with Richard Milhous Nixon, but there is a nice little picture of some guy pouring beer over Tricky Dick's head in the liner notes, not to mention some suggested reading on America's most beloved scoundrel president.

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