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Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan - Ballad of the Broken Sea

This is a pretty damn good album.  Is that a fair assessment?  Isobel
Campbell went to a lot of trouble to accurately portray the lives of
imaginery people in her head who would listen to classic AM radio pop
from the late 60s and 70s.  On the cover, Campbell is preparing her
faux hairpiece in a wood panelled motel room, listening to her vintage
record player whilst Lanagan sits on the bed, bored, reading a book. 
The inlay shows other shots of the La Crescenta Motel, Mark having a
cigarette outside the number 8 motel room, small knick-knacks, the
television, both laying in the bed bored waiting for something to
happen surrounded by the affectations of motel-living, from the cheap
clock radios to the danishes that they serve in the motel front room
through to the seedy sign informing guests of check out time with “Have
A Nice Day” in brackets.

The inlay of the cover matches the music ... which is Isobel Campbell
and Mark Lanegan riffing on famous female/male duos—echoes of Serge
Gainsbough and Jane Birkin, Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra and Johnny
and June Cash abound throughout the album that finds life much like on
the cover album artwork—life in the dusty, musty road-side motels,
cheap, caustic, beautiful, use-once-and-destroy beauty of those AM
radio classics.

The first track ‘Deus Ibi Est’ set the pace at an acoustic stomp with
Mark invading the ghost of Johnny Cash and June Cash with Mark
darkening the room with his gruff voice compared to the lightness of
Isobel Campbell’s.  ‘Black Mountain’ is Simon and Garfunkle with
Campbell weighing in with her very own soft-pop classic that might just
rival Bright Eyes. The sound is airy, sun-bleached with threatening
overtones.  It feels soft to the touch with acoustic and cello
interplay that suggests space within the darkness of the album.  Its
only when ‘The False Husband’ begins with the spaghetti western
Morricone guitar riff and Lanagan intoning ‘Where have you been my
Darling?  Where have you been my friend?’ before being answered by
Campbell in a soft lilting voice over strings. ‘The Darling Husband’
fits the mandate of Some Velvet Morning, sounding very much like two
different songs within the same one, until they both sing in unison
near the end rejoining at the end.  Its that interplay that makes the
album so intriguing, neither male nor female but an accumlation of both
the sexes.

Revolver takes off on the same concept when Kylie became the indie
darling by appearing in cover shots with Primal Scream and singing with
Nick Cave.  It starts off in a piano lounge with Mark describing the
breakdown of a violent relationship with Campbell on backing vocals. 
It is on the cover of Hank William’s Ramblin’ Man that Campbell really
makes the statement.  Dark, night-bearing, she sets up the instruments
to play a movie of something really dark in your head dragging the song
through a year of Sunday morning comedowns whilst being the sister
song to Tom Waits ‘Clap Hands’ from Raindogs with its off-kilter
rhythms.  Ballad of the Broken Seas continues with Saturday’s Gone,
returning to the Nancy Sinatra’s vibe and continuing the lightness
until the end with pleasing AM radio pop classics such as ‘Honey Child
What Can I Do’ and ‘The Circus Is Leaving Town’.

Its a weird exercise of love. I played it too my girl and she enjoyed
it.  No doubt, because we enjoy the female and male duos combinations
that AM radio used to play ... however the question was asked ‘What is
the point of the album when you can listen to those classics at
anytime?  The point is ... its another AM radio pop classic to be
placed in rotation with Johnny and June Cash, Nancy Sinatra and Lee
Hazelwood and Serge and Jane.  The only hope is that Campbell and
Lanegan team up soon for their sequel.

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