Young musicians shouldn't take tips from Kurt Wagner, the lead singer of Lambchop. He defies all the rules: He fronts an alt-country band based in mainstream Music City Nashville. His band boasts over twelve members onstage. He's a lead vocalist who reminds one of, well, Burl Ives. It should be a recipe for disaster, but instead, on albums such as 1996's How I Quit Smoking, Wagner and company make music that is brilliant, genre-bending, and simply gorgeous. The poppish "The Man Who Loved Beer," "Life's Little Tragedy," and "Your Life as a Sequel" aren't the noisiest nor twangiest tracks here, but they certainly are some of the best. Lambchop may very well be indie-rock's answer to the Jazz Passengers, utterly indefinable but always fun to hear.