Approximately Fab: Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, 'Sunday at Devil Dirt'

ISOBEL CAMPBELL HAS made a career out of odd choices.

As part of Scottish indie phenomenon Belle & Sebastian, she covered sophisticated '60s French pop with France Gall's "Poupee de Circ, Poupee de Son." She left that band, formed Gentle Waves, and recorded what amounted to a tribute to her record collection, mixing spaghetti-Western guitars, Astrud Gilberto-like vocals, and twee pop ballads to clean and simple effect. And recently, Campbell ditched all of that in favor of American folk.

But the key to Cambell is that she's always excelled at approximating other people's music rather than writing great songs.

And that's not a bad thing.

"Sunday at Devil Dirt" is Campbell's second release with former Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone Age frontman Mark Lanegan. It seems like another odd choice, Lanegan, known for his shrieking vocals and brooding looks, teaming up with the princess of twee, but just think back to Nick Cave's glorious 1995 collaboration with pop-icon Kylie Minogue on the murder ballad "Where the Wild Roses Grow," and you'll have a good idea of how it works out.

The well-received 2006 CD "Ballad of the Broken Seas" had a multi-layered, timeless Americana feel to it that had many fans convinced that Campbell had made the right decision to quit Belle & Sebastian and leave the twee for dust. "Devil Dirt" continues along the same lines.

Campbell's collaborations with Lanegan have drawn comparisons to the grit-and-velvet coupling of Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra, and while "Devil Dirt" evokes the sound of Hazlewood's gnarled, smoky baritone balanced against Sinatra's honey-sweet tones, it makes for a really good record in its own right.

Campbell wrote and produced "Sunday at Devil Dirt," and at times it feels as if a lot more thought went into the album's feel than into writing the songs themselves. Her voice on a lot of these tracks is thin and, not unlike Gilberto's, a little off-key and shaky, like her vocals were an afterthought, but it's Lanegan's intense, obscene phone caller vocals that are the star here, and he carries the album well.

The album opens with "Seafaring Song," a sweet, melancholy acoustic ballad, but quickly gets more sinister. "The Raven" is a gothic mix of Leonard Cohen and Ennio Morricone soundtrack with Lanegan at his darkest. "Come on Over (Turn Me On)" sounds like it came right off a Bond movie soundtrack. It's all swirling, soaring strings and sleazy guitar and percussion. It's seductive and mildly filthy and will make you feel like you need to take a cold shower after listening, as will "Shotgun Blues," which finds a sultry Campbell singing lead over steel guitar.

The album also features some pretty upbeat tracks ("Fight Fire With Fire," "Rambling Rose, Clinging Vine") that border on the precious. Somehow Campbell manages to make these tracks fit flawlessly and as a result, "Sunday at Devil Dirt" is as seamless as it is enjoyable. But after all, making things work is what she does best.

Written by Express contributor Ewa Beaujon

Photo courtesy Fontana International