1) For Which We Are Truly Thankful; 2) The Man Who Loved Beer; 3) The Militant; 4) We Never Argue; 5) Life's Little Tragedy; 6) Suzieju; 7) All Smiles and Mariachi; 8) The Scary Caroler; 9) Smuckers; 10) The Militant (Reprise); 11) Garf; 12) Your Life as a Sequel; 13) Theöne; 14) Again
This is where Lambchop set their form, and if you're familiar with that form you'll already know exactly what to expect. In good and bad.
Key tracks: "We Never Argue", "Suzieju", "Theöne"
The Lambchop formula, if you will, finds its footing here. Their first album saw Kurt Wagner and his gang with one foot in alt country and one foot in slacker-esque alt rock, and now the weight's started to shift towards the former. "Americana" is arguably a better descriptor than country through: Lambchop doesn't really have the twang of a country act, but the sweeping strings, smooth orchestration and quiet acoustic murmurs all have their roots in the vintage American songbook, which Wagner interprets through his own peculiar personality traits. Lambchop albums differ by tiny factors usually detectable only by seasoned veterans of the band's music, and on How I Quit Smoking that factor is the mere act that it lays down the tracks for the next two decades. The influence of the first album is still deep in the album's psyche, though. You know how on early 90s alternative rock or indie rock albums you've got that one much slower song - sometimes with strings - that isn't really a ballad but more of an introspective moment of calm that's there to balance the album's flow? Imagine an entire album of those back to back, just remove the excess rock artistry from the equation (I can’t imagine this was a particularly exciting time to be a drummer for Lambchop, for example).
In general though, if you know Lambchop you know how this goes. Wagner mutters surrealist everyday vignettes (which often elicit a genuine chuckle), the tempo barely ever goes beyond calmly trodding ("All Smiles and Mariachi" is the only uptempo number here and I use that term extremely loosely) and overall it all goes on for a little too long while sounding a little too similar throughout, but it's nonetheless all very pleasant to listen to. How I Quit Smoking isn’t really about the power of songcraft or individual set pieces, it’s one long sustained mood where barely anything happens unless you view it through a microscope. At their most Lambchoppiest the band's music can get downright samey, and How I Quit Smoking is what you'd point towards as a solid example of that. It sets the band's norms but because of that, it also doesn't tinker around with them like some of the later albums do and so it is particularly one-note. Its charms are practically passive, the songs more of a mindset and a moodscape that present themselves without causing a stir - but if you're in a Lambchop mood it works wonder. That near-perfect collaboration between mood and music is likely why there are so many people who like this band, including me - sometimes there's no other music that would work better than Wagner's quiet grace.
Nonetheless, to give How I Quit Smoking some credit of its own there are a few particular pieces of excellence that do stand out. "We Never Argue", "Life's Little Tragedy" and "Suzieju" forms the album's charmingly swooning core, full to their brim with the kind of elegance that would become more familiar across some albums down the line. "We Never Argue" also presents the album's catchiest vocal melody and the flute hook of "Suzieju" is the musical equivalent, so they're the bops of the record if you will, if that makes a difference. "Theöne" is a superlatively beautiful string-laden number which ends the record with an honestly touching way, with "Again" serving as its quick all-strings reprise to officially close things down. Those aren't the only parts of the album that jump out, but they're the notable ones in a sea of gentle guitar melodies, Wagner's murmur and barely-there percussion hits from one song to another, some of which are nicer than others. The only real point of criticism is that "The Militant" doesn't need to appear twice, because even if the "reprise" version has a different tone to the first version and so arguably justifies its existence, it's still the same song and bloats a tracklist that already feels like a dragging Sunday afternoon at times.
Otherwise though, unless you're insistent on listening to things chronologically (or you feel particularly inspired by this review to listen to this out of the blue, in which case, why?) by the time you get to this album you know the drill, and you'll likely have accepted it already. Lambchop have done better albums - many genuinely great - and then they've done albums like How I Quit Smoking that offer exactly what you expect and which works exactly how you'd like it to. Regardless of whether it's actually a truly memorable album is almost a moot point - it's comfortably Wagnerian at its most base form.
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