It's tempting to say something facile like "beauty meets the beast" in writing about this collaboration between former
Belle & Sebastian
member
Isobel Campbell
and
Mark Lanegan
, best known for his work with
Screaming Trees
Queens of the Stone Age
. After all,
Campbell
's voice is all sweet angelic whisper while
Lanegan
's whisky-and-nicotine rasp sounds like the product of ten thousand nights in a barroom, but somehow these sweet and sour elements come together with striking and impressive results on
Ballad of the Broken Seas
. It helps that musically these two are not far away from the same page; the ghostly
blues
-based structures of
's
Whiskey for the Holy Ghost
The Winding Sheet
may be starker than
's stuff with
or her solo set
Amorino
, but they both appear to revel in the sort of glorious sadness that draws beauty from melancholy, and they find a dark and lovely common ground on this set of songs.
produced the album and wrote the bulk of the material (though
wrote one song, the moody and satisfying
"Revolver"
), and while it's no great surprise that she comes up with superb material for herself, she also knows what to make of
's expressive rasp (
"The Circus Is Leaving Town"
is as good a performance as he's ever recorded), and their numbers together (especially
"The False Husband"
and the cover of
Hank Williams
'
"Ramblin' Man"
) recall what one hoped
Nick Cave
Kylie Minogue
's duets on
Murder Ballads
would sound like.
is a superbly crafted bit of late-night introspection that brings out the best in both
and adds new and unexpected facets to their impressive repertoires. ~ Mark Deming