plorentz's Full Review: Ballad of the Broken Seas by Isobel Campbell/Mark ...
Ten years ago, Paula Cole famously (and with annoying persistence) wondered "where have all the cowboys gone?" Apparently, it never occurred to her conjure up her own cowboys on record. This is probably why we don't really remember Paula Cole today, except as the perpetrator of a couple of annoyingly persistent adult contemporary pop singles.
In the 90s, most of what we might call alternative rock fell to one of two extremes. The first, and more popular (at least in the U.S.) was the grungy sound of Seattle - unwashed men singing dirtily about how depressed and angry and wacked out on blow they were. The other was the hetero-wimp model: bookish, delicate, and too soft for this world. Last year, these two extremes met when two of their iconic voices - Isobel Campbell, formerly of Belle & Sebastian, and Mark Lanegan, formerly of Screaming Trees - collaborated on a four-song EP (Ramblin' Man) of spaghetti western balladry.
The title song, a nifty nugget of Hank Williams fool's gold, found Lanegan playing the part of a freight train hopper, sandpaper-faced and swaggering all over Campbell's whispered, winkingly retrograde, cookin'-in-the-kitchen, lovin'-from-the-oven counterpoint, and came complete with Ennio Morricone whipcracks. It may sound gimmicky, but it holds up well; and it's one of the highlights of the pair's just-released, album-length elaboration on that original EP (reprising three of its four tracks), titled Ballad of Broken Seas.
These are songs for cowboys. And I'm talking real 19th Century type cowboys. Or at least 20th Century TV and cinema versions of real life 19th Century cowboys. Deadwood style cowboys. Straight cowboys, even. Cowboys who would never think of eating pudding. Cowboys who can sing a line like "there's a crimson bird flying when I go down on you" and make it sound both convincing and, in its own gratuitous way, romantic. But in a twist on the classic male chauvinist record industry tradition, the songs are, with few exceptions, written by Campbell for Lanegan to sing - adding a layer of knowingness, irony, and at times, heartbreaking (and/or heartbroken) wit to the songs.
In the opening "Deus Ibi Est" - a dark, grumbly monologue full of all sorts of dusty archetypes and manly boasts, Campbell turns Lanegan into the cowboy of her (and, okay, yeah, my) dreams - a rough character of hard-won principles who holds firm to his own code of honor (which doesn't necessarily coincide with the code of law). From there, the two have a gay old time acting out scenes from low-budget matinees. "False Husband" is a haunted duet that finds Campbell calling her man on his infidelities while Lanegan moans despondently, "Where have you been my darling?" "(Do You Wanna) Come Walk With Me?" is a simple, campfire waltz.
The arrangements are typically acoustic guitar, bass and drums with bits of fiddle, harmonica or other such indigenous instruments, lending the songs the kind of airy intimacy we might associate with semi-annual fishing trips in the mountains, but the album is at its most invigorating when the melodies are given the retro-cinema treatment they so clearly yearn for. "Honey Child What Can I Do" - arguably the catchiest and inarguably the most upbeat track here - goes out in a gorgeous fake backdrop sunset of swelling strings and totally Hollywood fluorishes of harp. The closing "The Circus is Leaving Town" is a tear-jerking reproduction of everything that made Kenny Rogers a leading man (even the leading lady's name in the song is Ruby).
Still, on the whole, the album has to fight its own novelty factor. Its never less than a pleasure to listen to, but, aside from a couple of genuinely moving moments, the album is more like one of the Coen Brothers' more clever exercises in film. The way the two singers construct their soundstage backdrop, they way they immerse themselves within that backdrop, living in it as if it were real - the way they maintain character throughout the disc - is impressive. But the question sorta lingers: "What for?" For as deeply entrenched as Campbell and Lanegan are in these songs, they often come up just a teeny bit shallow.
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BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:
"Ballad of Broken Seas" by Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan
Matador Records
Released 3/7/06
Produced by Isobel Campbell
43 min.
SONGS: Deus Ibi Est - Black Mountain - The False Husband - Ballad of Broken Seas - Revolver - Ramblin' Man - (Do You Wanna) Come Walk With Me? - Saturday's Gone - It's Hard to Kill a Bad Thing - Honey Child, What Can I Do? - Dusty Wreath - The Circus is Leaving Town
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