When it was released earlier this year I resisted Sunday At Devil Dirt, Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan‘s well-received, rather tongue-in-cheek take on Americana, their second full-length collaboration. It seemed to me too studied, too contrived somehow, a feeling heightened by the fact that Lanegan is something of a hired gun these days – having also supplied vocals to the highly mediocre trip-hoppery of Soulsavers, among others - adding instant gravitas with his Bourban-and-cigarettes-chiselled baritone. Written by the waifish Scottish indie darling Campbell, I couldn’t help think of Lanegan as a kind of country-rock Ol’ Dirty Bastard (R.I.P), enlisted to add an air of debauchery to other people’s records. OK, so I was wrong! The whole enterprise might have appeared more cynical had Campbell been trying to deliver an imitation of dust-blown authenticity. However, this is more revisionist high-jinx than soul-searching alt-country: no naked emotional honesty here, but rather fully-costumed period theatre in the mould of Lee & Nancy or Johnny Cash. Like Micah P Hinson’s fine … Red Empire Orchestre, Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan’s output is stylised and cinematic, not as bleak or skeletal as some more orthodox Stateside folk and country.
If you were not persuaded by Sunday at Devil Dirt, the Keep Me In Mind Sweetheart EP may change your mind. Asides the gorgeous eponymous single taken from the album, the EP comprises five tracks “kept back” from the LP for release later in the year – and a timely little stocking filler it is too! I consider myself a Christmassy person, and it may be just me but I can’t help hearing in the tracks selected for this EP a kind of Yuletide warmth. ‘Fight Fire With Fire’ finds Lanegan Leonard Cohening-it-up over a woozy fireside waltz (hmm, is that possible?) that recalls Sheffield’s own retro crooner Richard Hawley. Rather drowse-inducing in its repetition, is swirls gently around in a one-two-many-mulled-wines-dozing-off-in-a-comfy-chair kind of way. ’Asleep On A Sixpence’ is a cello and piano-led vagabond ballad that sounds like Tom Waits gatecrashing a Christmas carol concert, an effect evoked by the appropriation of ‘While Shepherd’s Watch Their Flocks’ as an outro. ‘Rambling Rose’ is admittedly not seasonal at all, unless you consider tumbleweeds and pedal steel guitar part of your regular yuletide get-up. But again Campbell puts just enough reverb into the mix to subtly subvert the country textures with an air of languid detachment. Finally, ‘Hang On’ is Lanegan-free dream pop featuring Isobel Cambell’s sweet, airy vocals over a delicate guitar refrain that recalls early Velvet Underground, but with Nico’s voice somehow digitally de-Germanified.
A lovely EP - Merry Christmas!
80%
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan on MySpace
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Quite curious to listen to this. Title track sounded good last night live.
I think their main problem is a lack of quality songwriting.
They are two excellent voices and excel anytime are hired by someone, but when it comes to write new material, it always gives me the sensation of incompleteness. Good but not perfect.
I can’t see how 5 out-tracks from the same session can be better than the 12 originally selected for the original LP, but I will buy this EP (hopefully if it is not sold together with the original album).
I tend to be compulsively attracted by any “Bourban-and-cigarettes-chiselled baritone” voice!
Hi Valerio,
I think it’s fair to say this really stands up in its own right – it doesn’t feel like a handful of outtakes. What I like about it, and forgot to mention in the review, is that it is less posey than some of the stuff on the album, more drifty – less self-conscious. Some of the album sounded a bit too Lee & Nancy to me, or even Nick Cave circa Murder Ballads, but the EP doesn’t at all.
James