'Sunday at Devil Dirt'
What The Critics Say
The second collaboration between Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, 2008's Sunday at Devil Dirt, follows roughly the same template as the first, 2006's Ballad of the Broken Seas. The songs hit all the same signposts with stops at the lowdown country blues, and melancholy orchestral pop à la Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood, restrained British folk, and dramatic Bad Seeds-lite balladry. Once again, Campbell reverses the traditional pop formula of a male Svengali, writing, producing, and molding his female talent by writing all the songs and doing all the production and arranging herself, leaving Lanegan in the diva role. In fact, Devil Dirt is almost a carbon copy of Broken Seas in every way (except for the decidedly cheap looking album art). This similarity could be problematic and make the album less impressive or desirable; fortunately, the formula is strong and worth revisiting. Campbell's arranging skills have grown some too, though they were already strong, and the production is clean and dramatic. In spots, it verges on too clean (a little more grit would have made some of the songs more powerful, a little less NPR, and a little more dangerous) but never to the point of dulling the songs impact. The real treat of the record is hearing Lanegan's gruff baritone mesh queasily with Campbell's paper-thin vocals, their duets on "Who Built the Road?" and "Keep Me in Mind, Sweetheart" to name two are quite entertaining and charming. Lanegan's solo spots are treated with his trademark broken down melancholy growl; he's remarkably steady and reliable throughout (this album and his career) and gives the album a rocksteady foundation of melancholy soul. Campbell's vocal feature is a bit of a wobbler, though, as hearing her purr her way through a 12-bar blues is territory better left to Holly Golightly, she just sounds kittenish instead of sultry here. It's really the only stumble on the album though and more proof that a Svengali is better off staying in the background, especially if the world of sound he creates is as captivating as what Campbell creates on Sunday at Devil Dirt. ~ Tim Sendra, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Before she recorded Ballad of the Broken Seas with Mark Lanegan, Isobel Campbell recorded the breathtakingly beautiful Milk White Sheets. Instead of the showy country balladry she and Lanegan laid down, here Campbell delves deep into the sounds of 1960s British folk. In the liner notes she comes right out and says that Milk White Sheets was inspired by the music of female folk giants Shirley Collins, Jean Ritchie, and Anne Briggs. It's no stretch to say that Campbell has created an album that stands shoulder to shoulder with anything her idols released. Everything about Milk White Sheets is enchanting and lovely. The arrangements are intimate and small; mainly built around acoustic guitars and Campbell's voice but made lively with the addition of cellos, glockenspiel, percussion, and on the instrumental "James," string arrangements that call to mind Robert Kirby's wonderful work with Nick Drake. The songs Campbell picks to cover are always interesting choices, and her own compositions are sublime. As an indication of just how authentic her songs sound, it's difficult to tell the songs she composed from the traditional folk songs like "Reynardine" and "Loving Hannah" that she covers. Best of all is Campbell's voice. While she's a fine pop singer and a lovely country crooner, her tender and seductive vocals are a revelation. Whether breathily cooing through the sweet "Cachel Wood" or yipping through "Yearning," she has never sounded this good before. It truly sounds like she was born to sing this autumnal and very British kind of folk. Hopefully her fans will stick with her on this fascinating detour, and hopefully she herself will keep releasing records this intimate, beautiful, and melancholy. ~ Tim Sendra, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
It's tempting to say something facile like "beauty meets the beast" in writing about this collaboration between former Belle & Sebastian member Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, best known for his work with Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone Age. After all, Campbell's voice is all sweet angelic whisper while Lanegan's whisky-and-nicotine rasp sounds like the product of ten thousand nights in a barroom, but somehow these sweet and sour elements come together with striking and impressive results on Ballad of the Broken Seas. It helps that musically these two are not far away from the same page; the ghostly blues-based structures of Lanegan's Whiskey for the Holy Ghost and The Winding Sheet may be starker than Campbell's stuff with Belle & Sebastian or her solo set Amorino, but they both appear to revel in the sort of glorious sadness that draws beauty from melancholy, and they find a dark and lovely common ground on this set of songs. Campbell produced the album and wrote the bulk of the material (though Lanegan wrote one song, the moody and satisfying "Revolver"), and while it's no great surprise that she comes up with superb material for herself, she also knows what to make of Lanegan's expressive rasp ("The Circus Is Leaving Town" is as good a performance as he's ever recorded), and their numbers together (especially "The False Husband" and the cover of Hank Williams' "Ramblin' Man") recall what one hoped Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue's duets on Murder Ballads would sound like. Ballad of the Broken Seas is a superbly crafted bit of late-night introspection that brings out the best in both Lanegan and Campbell and adds new and unexpected facets to their impressive repertoires. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Former Belle & Sebastian member Isobel Campbell's first album under her own name is very similar to the two albums she recorded as the Gentle Waves. The same autumnal melancholy pervades the songs, the same delicate beauty exists in the arrangements, the same tender emotions are on display lyrically, and Campbell's voice is still a fragile wisp barely able to stay afloat above the sad sawing of the strings. What has changed is the scale of the record: it is really quite grand, with a seeming cast of thousands helping to make the record achingly lush and romantic. The entire disc is flooded with cinematic strings, giving it the feel of a pastoral epic, much like Nick Drake if he were happy or Donovan if he were less happy. Very British and very good. The arrangements are always inventive and dramatic, and it sounds like she also has been listening to some jazz records, because many of the songs have a swinging continental jazz feeling with lots of groovy piano work and bubbling standup bass. Tracks like "Song for Baby" and "October's Sky" are for all intents and purposes straight-up chamber jazz. Good and inventive chamber jazz, even. Campbell also throws in a few surprises, like the wacky Dixieland of "The Cat's Pyjamas" and the Getz/Gilberto-sampling "The Breeze Whispered Your Name." At its best, on songs like "Monologue for an Old True Love" or the Nancy & Lee-styled orchestral country duet with Eugene Kelly, listening to Amorino provides nearly as many musical thrills as listening to a good B&S record. It definitely makes her decision to leave Belle & Sebastian less painful, as now the Belle & Sebastian-loving throng has something to play when it has worn out Dear Catastrophe Waitress. ~ Tim Sendra, All Music Guide
