At first glance, it’s a bizarre pairing: Isobel Campbell, formerly of Scots twee-popstrels Belle and Sebastian, and Mark Lanegan, the giant redwood who towered at the microphone of Seattle’s Americana demi-legends Screaming Trees. But on Ballad Of The Broken Seas, we see not only many points of conciliation between these two diverse vocalists, but learn a little more about each in the process. Lanegan’s last few albums have been dour, zombified affairs, but on "(Do You Wanna) Come Walk With Me" his rich, lightning-scarred vocal sounds warm, revitalised--romantic, even. Campbell, meanwhile, is anything but a wallflower: it’s her understated, siren-like vocals that define numbers like "The False Husband" and "Black Mountain", fragile, tremulous but exquisitely orchestrated numbers that hark back to classic British folk touchstones like Vashti Bunyan and Nick Drake. Most importantly, however, when they sing together, there’s genuine chemistry: see the magical "Revolver" or a cover of Hank Williams’ "Ramblin’ Man", which mark out Lanegan and Campbell as something of a Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra for the modern freak-folk set. --Louis Pattison
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