Isobel Campbell – ‘Milkwhite Sheets’ (V2) Released 23/10/06

Isobel Campbell’s career has been an eventful if largely low-key one (I smell a history lesson). Back in 1995 she was the cello-playing founder member of indie giants Belle and Sebastian and earned co-writer and singing credits on several of their albums. She first entered the realms of the side project as The Green Waves in 1999, and shortly after waving farewell to Belle and Sebastian in 2002, released an album of Billie Holiday covers in collaboration with jazz musician Bill Wells. Her first truly solo album came with 2003’s ‘Amorino’, which was followed up with another collaboration, this time with grunge veteran and sometime Queens of the Stone Age member Mark Lanegan. Released earlier this year, ‘Ballad Of The Broken Seas’ won critical praise and a Mercury Prize nomination for its mix of Campbell’s delicate folky indie and Lanegan’s darker blues and rock influences.

Just a few months on (books away now class), Campbell’s new release, ‘Milkwhite Sheets’, is something of a back-to-basics album, dominated by simple folk influences, finger-picked guitar and minimal string arrangements. It’s a hundred miles from the playful orchestration of Belle and Sebastian or the dramatic and jazzy sounds of ‘Amorino’, showcasing both traditional folk songs and Campbell’s own efforts. But there’s something of a contradiction at work here: the album’s light and subtle arrangements perfectly match Campbell’s fragile vocals, yet at the same time highlight the weakness in both her song writing and her voice.

Despite being the primary writer on ‘Ballad Of The Broken Seas’, it was Mark Lanegan’s gritty Tom Waits-esque vocals that gave depth and life to the Campbell’s songs, whilst perfectly complementing her own vocal work. Without him, however, this record largely feels limp and empty. Although there is more going on here than first meets the eye, the songs themselves often seem hollow, relying on the prettiness of the music almost like a crutch: a backwards case of style over substance.

The album does have its more pleasing moments: ‘Willows Song’ is a dreamy ode that mounts through Celtic flutes and twangy ukulele plucking to a psychadelic haze that seems both frenzied yet perfectly controlled at the same time. But then there’s also the whiny ‘Yearning’, and the oh-so-dreary-when-is-this-record-going-to-end? album closer ‘Thursday’s Child’. Much like a discarded shell, ‘Milkwhite Sheets’ has a pretty and intricate exterior, but pick it up for closer examination and you’ll discover there’s very little inside.