Punching the Clown is the seventeenth studio album by the American band Lambchop. The band's first album since The Bible, it was released on August 21, 2026, through Merge Records in the United States and through City Slang elsewhere. After exploring electronic music between FLOTUS and The Bible, the band largely returned to the folk and country sounds which characterized their earlier albums. The album differentiates itself with the inclusion of two gospel choirs – the Eau Claire Vocal Sextet and the London Choir – on every track, imparting significant influence from the genre. Inspiration for the album originated on a night when Kurt Wagner, who is the only constant member of Lambchop, was enthralled in a song consisting solely of one banjo chord and a few voices on the radio. During an unsuccessful search for the song, Wagner discovered lined-out hymnody, which is a gospel form of call and response; he wanted to make an album in the style. Wagner wrote or co-wrote every track; most were co-written by guitarist Andrew Broder, who became a member of Lambchop during the release cycles of Showtunes and The Bible. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punchin...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)