Lambchop announce album and confirm two Irish gigs

Lambchop's new album, Punching the Clown, is set for release on August 21. To accompany the announcement, the band have dropped 'Weakened', a single from the record, and confirmed two live dates in Ireland.

They will play St Nicholas’ Church, Galway on February 20 and The Helix, Dublin on February 21, 2027.

The group have a style that consists of a mix of genres but have been loosely associated with alternative country. Since they were founded in 1986, Lambchop have consisted of a large and fluid collective of musicians focused around its creative centre and frontman Kurt Wagner.

“The album’s first single, is an anthem for the weak-spirited in a feverish world, carried by the interplay of voices that ultimately merge into a coda demonstrating just how much power this Lambchop line-up can generate", reads a statement from the band about the lead single.

"This music needs no noise to grow; it finds its strength from within."

The entire album was recorded in only three days and is the band's first, full-length release since The Bible in 2022.

“In early 2024 I heard a song on the radio on my way to get some gas. just a minimal single chord strummed banjo and a small group of voices," Wagner said about the album.

"It seemed perfect in the moment as the moment became perfect in itself. I never found out who it was, it sounded kinda like early country gospel?"

“In a time of searching I discovered a type of gospel singing known as lined out singing which is said to have begun in the late 1800s in Scotland. It migrated to Appalachia and became an obscure root of American gospel.

“It was a spontaneous call and response type of acapella singing led by a clerk with a chorus of singers revealing the raw beauty and power of the human voice with its unique varieties its unadorned simplicity gave weight to the words as they were sung. I wanted to make a record that emulated this kind of music.”

Presale for Punching the Clown is available here.