Sunday At Devil Dirt

Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan

V2

2008-05-12

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Following 2006’ acclaimed and Mercury nominated Ballad Of The Broken Seas comes another collaboration between Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan. Sunday At Devil Dirt sees the ex-Belle and Sebastian femme continuing the journey started with that previous work and its stand out tracks like “The Circus Is Leaving Town”, and penning more country edged-folk ballads here, ripe for the swarthy tones of whisky-barrel-throated former Screaming Trees/Queens Of The Stone Age vocalist Lanegan.

With a title like Sunday At Devil Dirt you can tell that the dusty American west infuses the album and Campbell’s major solo vocal entry “Shotgun Blues” tackles this head on in a classic lo-fi recorded slide blues number, however, the majority of material here sees Lanegan taking centre vocal stage, with the songwriter often content to breathe backing to effect. Lanegan functions not just as Campbell’s vocalist but her muse and this works well with songs such as the ominous “The Raven” and harmonious “Keep Me In Mind Sweetheart” brimming with just the right feeling, seriousness and emotion for their subjects, pace and mood.

its bell-toll-punctuated Western noir recalling the Bad Seed’s classic “Red Right Hand”

As was the case before, when the songs are more like duets, such as on tracks like “Seafaring Song” the listener is reminded of Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave’s Murder Ballads work, with opposing dark and light, soothing and harsh tonal opposites working in partnership — and this Nick Cave reference is felt here even more so on one of the album’s best and most instant tracks “Who Built The Road” (co-penned by Campbell with Jim McCulloch), with its bell-toll-punctuated Western noir recalling the Bad Seed’s classic “Red Right Hand”. However, the pair also bring something very distinctly their own into this dual vocal framework, especially when on the more upbeat bar-room dance numbers like “The Flame That Burns” and the Nina Simone-inflected “Come On Over (Turn Me On)”.

If looking for problems with Sunday At Devil Dirt you could perhaps feel the similarity between the pace and tone of many tracks (and indeed similarity to the previous record) but at 45 minutes odd it still doesn’t feel overlong or overused, and interjections into the Lanegan-voiced troubled ballads from Campbell’s blues and even an instrumental jazz-tinged effort do all serve to break it up. The template that is used though for the main is used as it’s one that works, and it’s a style which takes its power from its understatement. Sum total this is another accomplished record offering some gems and proving that the unlikely pairing have plenty more to offer.