Lambchop - This (Is What I Wanted To Tell You) (LP) - White Vinyl

Lambchop’s late-era glow-up has been one of the quiet joys of the last decade, and This (Is What I Wanted To Tell You) is the moment it all clicks into place. Arriving in 2019 through Merge in the US and City Slang in Europe, it takes the electronic tilt of FLOTUS and makes it feel lived-in, warm, and oddly intimate. Kurt Wagner leans into his processed vocal, not as a trick but as a kind of soft-focus lens. You can hear his breath and grain inside the Auto-Tune, which sounds contradictory until you sit with it a while. Then it feels obvious. Of course this is how Lambchop would age, finding new textures without losing that Southern hush.

The opener, The New Isn’t So You Anymore, was the calling card, and it still feels like a mission statement. A measured beat, patient piano, the sense of a room with good wood floors. Wagner sings like someone writing a note on the back of a receipt, trying to get something awkward and tender into the right shape. It’s a slow-burn that refuses to chase a pay-off. The reward is the way the arrangement keeps opening up, bit by bit, like curtains drawing back.

A lot of that shape comes from Wagner’s trusted collaborators. He worked closely with Matt McCaughan, the Bon Iver drummer who has a real feel for space, and Andrew Broder, whose knack for folding in gentle electronics keeps the thing drifting rather than grinding. The record moves between Nashville and Minneapolis sensibilities, which explains why pedal-steel shimmers can sit next to murmuring synths without any elbowing for room. It’s less a band rolling in a room and more a conversation between friends who know when to leave silence alone.

Across eight songs, the writing stays wry and unshowy. Wagner has always been a master of the tossed-off aside that lingers, and here he’s especially good at noting small daily rituals and making them feel like weather reports. There’s romance in the spill of a morning coffee, a bit of gallows humour when the news gets loud again. The title track is a lovely pivot point, all gentle motion and confessions half-sung, half-spoken. It’s not confessional in the diary sense. It’s confessional like a chat on the porch at dusk.

Critics heard the balance. The Guardian and Pitchfork both clocked how the album squares the circle between Lambchop’s old soul and its newer electronic pulse, with praise for the restraint and the way the Auto-Tune turns into an expressive instrument. If you came in through Nixon or Is a Woman and worried the tech would sand off the humanity, this record is the best counterargument. The voice is treated, yes, but that makes the piano, horns and subtle percussion bloom around it. The humanity moves to the margins and gets bigger.

Spin this on a decent turntable and you’ll get why people hunt down Lambchop vinyl. The quiet parts stay quiet. The bass has that supple, elastic feel you want for late-night listening. This (Is What I Wanted To Tell You) vinyl in particular does right by the space in the mixes, letting the small clicks and room tones breathe. If you’re looking to buy Lambchop records online, this is a smart place to start for the later period, and it sits beautifully next to older Lambchop albums on vinyl. I found my copy while poking around a Melbourne record store on a rainy Saturday, and it’s become one of those reach-for-it records when the house calms down. For folks browsing vinyl records Australia wide, keep an eye out; it’s one that rewards a full side uninterrupted.

What sticks after a few months of living with it is how humane it feels. There’s melancholy in the corners, sure, but there’s also neighbourly warmth and a sense of curiosity about where songs can go without showing off. Wagner has always favoured small gestures that accumulate. Here, with McCaughan and Broder weaving in the subtlest textures, those gestures glow. It’s not trying to impress. It just invites you in, puts on a pot of tea, and lets you notice the details. If you’re crate-digging for something to play after dark, This (Is What I Wanted To Tell You) is a keeper.