Gig review: Lambchop at Howard Assembly Room, Leeds

Lambchop are probably still most readily associated with the luxuriously layered country-soul swoon of 2000’s widescreen yet intimate masterpiece Nixon, which turned them into reigning champions of the then-fashionable alt. country scene.

The Nashville collective have moved to an entirely different musical postcode area since 2012’s Mr. M hit another peak of warmly organic luminance. Now consisting of the loose outfit’s sole constant presence, creatively restless songwriter and singer Kurt Wagner, and whoever he decides to work with, more recent Lambchop albums have dabbled with prominent electronic textures, copiously administered autotune, deconstructed songcraft, even a drop of disco.

The one unchanging factor in the Lambchop recipe is Wagner’s profoundly idiosyncratic songwriting. As such, it makes perfect sense that tonight’s stripped-down piano-and-voice duo show (the polar opposite of the orchestral scope of the large Lambchop ensembles of the past) with Wagner’s current key collaborator, Minneapolis-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Andrew Broder, places the focus unstintingly on Lambchop’s essence: the songs.

Drawn largely from the most recent Lambchop album, 2022’s excellently eclectic The Bible, the material aired tonight withstands the unforgiven glare of such a spartan set-up: apart from a grand piano, a microphone stand, two spotlights and some sparingly administered emissions of theatrical smoke, there is nothing to draw attention away from the music.

Distilling everyday observations, stream-of-consciousness ponderations, nimble wordplay, heavily coded social commentary and heartfelt doses of soul-baring emotion into a warm, wise and occasionally slightly baffling broth, Wagner’s songs are hardly immediately catchy crowd-pleasers: this is music that requires some commitment from the listener to bloom.

The capacity crowd’s attention doesn’t waver for a second during the 75-minute performance: even the two potential singalong moments, an upbeat glide through 2000’s nearly-hit Up With People and a segment from Talking Heads evergreen Once In A Lifetime that Lambchop live favourite Get It evolves into, are received in rapt and appreciative concentration.

This is very much a duo show: as well as navigating the material with a nimble spirit of deconstruction that has more in common with ambient experimentation than anything associated with rock music, Broder (who also sings the parts in upper register on Police Dog Blues, one of The Bible’s highlights) ties the songs together into informal medleys with contemplative instrumental interludes.

Dressed in a smart blue blazer with shiny brass buttons, alongside his trademark trucker’s cap, Wagner spends these instrumental sections gliding across the spartan stage whilst approximating the act of playing air piano, half hamming it up, half swept along by the music.

The Philly Soul-affiliated falsetto of the Nixon era has long been retired, but Wagner’s conversational murmur is the perfect accompaniment to these often unusually constructed yet emotionally resonant songs.

Visibly touched by the turnout and rapturous reception at the end of the main set, the sole encore Theöne’s unusually direct sentiments (“you are the one”) is most likely directed at a romantic partner, but it could equally be a heartfelt thank you note to Lambchop’s audience.