Lambchop have shared Stella, the second track lifted from Punching The Clown, their new album due 21st August 2026 via City Slang. It follows lead single Weakened and the album’s announcement last month.
Where Weakened arrived with a certain grandeur, Stella settles into lush minimalism. Guitar and banjo intertwine beneath an omnipresent choir that drifts through much of the record, the arrangement pared back to the banjo-voice-choir framework Kurt Wagner built the album around. A circling, hymn-like refrain loops and tightens as the song goes, less a chorus than an incantation.
That rootsiness appears to run into the words, too, with Wagner’s “From the gray Atlantic ocean to a wide specific shore” sounding like a greyer and more oblique line from Wabash Cannonball, chiming with the old-American-song forms Wagner set out to channel on the record.
Speaking about the track, Wagner says: “Had a long dream last night where I ended up deep in the woods playing guitar and singing. When I was done and walking back to my car there were a few people in the woods who voiced their approval. Felt pretty good. I have no idea what that was about. Some songs are like dreams, ‘Stella’ was one of those.”
Punching The Clown is Lambchop’s first album in nearly four years, following The Bible, and reunites Wagner with producer Ryan Olson. It features Andrew Broder on guitar, Justin Vernon on banjo and a choir helmed by Blake Morgan, with Mark Nevers recording and mixing.
Punching The Clown (21st August 2026) City Slang