Camera Obscura - MyMaudlin Career

Sun 10th May, 2009 in Music Reviews

When we last heard from Camera Obscura it was 2006. Let’s Get Out of this Country, the group’s third album, was beginning to earn the Scottish six-piece much wider recognition and acclaim. It even allowed the group to make the lengthy jaunt to Australia for the first time.

It has since taken the Glaswegian indie-popsters three years to release its follow-up, and the anticipation is two-fold. My Maudlin Career will not only satiate their growing legion of eager fans. It also marks a significant step forward for the band, being their first release on 4AD, a label whose impressive roster includes Pixies, TV on the Radio and the Breeders among others.

As part of Glasgow’s incredibly rich music scene, the band counts the likes of pop stalwarts such as Belle and Sebastian, Teenage Fanclub and My Latest Novel among their peers. Camera Obscura bring to the table a sound rooted in modern indie pop. It’s set apart though by its dreamy quality and the group’s almost uncanny ability to make an album simultaneously sound like it could have belonged to an era several decades ago.

The album’s leading single French Navy grabs in the same way that Eighties Fan from 2001’s Biggest Bluest Hi Fi did, its stomping drum beat paving the way for one of their best pop numbers to date. The song’s whimsical hooks, echoed vocals and airy production giving it a wistful – œ60s vibe. The retro sound reverberates even more prominently in the delightful The Sweetest Thing, which marries Brian Wilson-esque harmonies with a stomping, infectious Motown flavour. It shouldn’t surprise fans to learn that Let’s Get Out Of This Country producer Jai Haapalainen returns to the helm for their fourth album. The lush sounds and touches he fleshed out in the band’s previous album can be heard here again.

Traceyanne Campbell’s vocals and melodies are once again a stand-out, her sweet voice and heartfelt lyrics adding a touch of melancholy to even the album’s more upbeat instrumentation. In many of the songs Campbell takes us into her recent past, reflecting on love, loss, change and heartache. Her voice possesses a tangible emotional quality, so you really do feel a kind of finality when she croons in Careless Love: “I blow hot and cold, I’m like a yo-yo, so I don’t think I should see you again”, or when her voice subtly cracks over “Oh James, you broke me, I thought I knew you well” in the heartstring-tugging ballad James.

Their previous album had set the bar high for its follow-up; luckily, the band played to their strengths and have produced one of their most accomplished releases to date. Tragic and beautiful, My Maudlin Career shows a band that seems more comfortable than they have ever been, with a sound that they own so incredibly well.

My Maudlin Career is out now on 4AD through Remote Control Records.