Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - 'Sunday At Devil Dirt' (V2) Released 12/05/08

The Mercury prize nominated 'Ballad Of The Broken Seas' revealed a surprise pairing of contrasting opposites that in lesser hands could prove so much scrambled egg, but the gruff baritone of Mark Lanegan (The Gutter Twins, Screaming Trees, Queens Of The Stone Age) and the Tupelo honeyed vocals of Isobel Campbell (Belle & Sebastian) again proves one of those wonderful dalliances that have come about as beauty and the beast pairings in the guise of Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue, Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra, and Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin. This follow up, 'Sunday At Devil Dirt', cements that friendship with Lanegan clearly wearing the trousers in the relationship and the whispered tones of Campbell playing the atmospheric supporting role, the pitched baritone taking the songs firmly in hand. The dynamic lies in the duet, and the songbook here is coloured by a search for redemption with tales of seafarers, lost souls, forbidden love and lamentations. 

The delightful 'Seafaring Song' takes to the high seas with a Cohen-esque ballad on a tale of long ago with accordion and lilting strings, and 'Who Build The Road' ignites the relationship on a song of wild souls saved by the redeeming power of love, while 'The Flame That Burns' has sepia antique-tones on a seductive bluesy rag with Campbell cooing like a dove. The Cohen/Cave flavoured 'The Raven' sets a tone to a spaghetti-Western with a sense of foreboding as Lanegan barely raises a register above a croak, and the Dr John-like pan-African voodoo of 'Back Burner' stalks with a slow staccato beat with all the intensity of a stiff espresso and a whisky burn. On 'Shotgun Blues' Campbell swelters, singing oh so naughtily - "...ooh Daddy/ climbing on your knee/ I got an itch needs scratching/ you take good care of me..." to a riffing bottleneck blues guitar, while Jools will no doubt love to get on down for 'Come On Over (Turn Me On)', a track that swoons with a seductive flick of the hair and a revealing dress as bluesy licks and waltzing strings add to the air of intoxication

Softer tones are explored on the rummy old 'Salvation', written by Jim McCulloch, a Dylan-esque nugget that reminds of big Bob's 'It's All Over Now Baby Blue', Lanegan singing "...my blood is flowing slowly like the tide/ and blood is thick and so's my old grey hide...", with the galvanising rallying call - "...gotta get up and moan...", and the hay-bale country duet of 'Keep Me In Mind, Sweetheart' makes for a slow square dance, while the rhyming couplets of 'Something To Believe' seem a trite laboured but the melody lifted by the Whittaker-esque whistles. Cat Stevens and Ray Lamontagne have had a good crack at that old demonmeister, trouble, and on 'Trouble' a weary tone is set by standing bass and a slow waltz while the duo make for a complimentary rather than contrasting pair singing "...Oh trouble/ haven't slept a day in years..." as Hammond organ and strings give the weary souls some reprieve. 

Campbell likens the vignettes of 'Sunday At Devil Dirt' to scenes from a Tennessee Williams play with no hint of braggadocio from the Scot who has earned herself a place in Harry Smith's Anthology Of American Folk Music. The folksy blues of 'Ballad Of The Broken Seas' with its' tales of murder and revenge are replaced by a need for succor and redemption on 'Sunday At Devil Dirt', no easy task with your face in the mud. Yet the musicality is given an airing and the tones shift throughout as waltzes, blues rags, a spaghetti-Western coda and country ballads are set to lilting and soaring strings. With Campbell working at this album some two years and the Lanegan's voice-for-hire contribution some nine days, my money's on Campbell making this relationship endure.