Camera Obscura Let's Get Out Of This Country by: Justin Pearsall & Tim Clare Fri:02-Feb-07 Label: Merge Year: 2006 WB rating 84 out of 100

Come out; come out, sweet Camera Obscura, out from that vile shadow of the Belle and Sebastian beast. We have been waiting...

Sickly sweet and grossly melancholic, Let’s Get Out Of This Country is the sound of puppy-love evolving. It is what happens when a band loses their baby teeth. But ultimately it is Tracyanne Campbell, lead vocalist and songwriter, taking us on a road trip. She’s staring out the window, watching the scenery unfold and train-of-thought rambling about the recent past. Like a child on a long journey we lay in the back seat; half asleep, the sweet words floating over us…

‘Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken’ starts the trip in revelation and wistful intellect. Campbell, our songstress conductor, is captivating with her sparse and delightfully pretty converse: “He said ‘I’ll protect you like you are the crown jewels’ yet/Said he’s feeling sorrier for me the more I behave badly/I can bet.” Immediately all defences our down, Campbell’s doubts and fears exposed. Here we are privy to open wounds, as we pass thick salty air, there is a plea for help and guidance: “Lloyd, I’m ready to be heartbroken/I can’t see further than my own nose at this moment.”

The road is fog. But intuitively, Campbell knows the way. Her experiences – the ever-present skeletons from the closet – guide her, and us. These scars reinforce that as helpless as she sounds, there is only one person steering this eastbound vehicle.

‘Tears For Affairs’ is more playful, but still pessimistically stained by this determined fog: “Can you handle one more dirty secret/one more dirty night/Is it true what they say/will it make us go blind.” Campbell takes the foot off the accelerator, allowing the swarm of traffic to pass; she addresses thin-air, as if in conversation with herself. We hang onto the words, enchanted.

The suggestion of similarity to Belle and Sebastian is the nagging back seat driver on our trip, the devil’s advocate that bites at the heels of Campbell and Co. Apart from the effervescent pop of ‘If Looks Could Kill’, Camera Obscura have steered clear of the road to familiarity. But, while the breezy brevity of ‘If Looks Could Kill’ is a perfect pep-me-up for the late trip blues, its communal approach – the sweet group sing-a-long – is fuel for the back seat driver; questioning the current direction.

As this journey unfolds, it is easy to forget the light and gloriously soft-centred, retro radio that illuminates Campbell’s narration. Musically, Let’s Get Out Of This Country is a fusion of country, lounge and Motown-esque pop, in a balance that quotes many, but creates anew. We are treated to a sound that is so unobtrusive and cheerfully catchy that it is easy to forget the warts-and-all negativity that defines this collection of songs: “Don’t you worry, don’t get in a state/I don’t believe in true love anyway/Who’s being pessimistic now?” (Country Mile).

The most difficult part of any road journey is the tedium that threatens to derail our adventure.  But Campbell again establishes control. She knows all the shortcuts on this long road, ensuring that the voyage is pleasant. When the road seems long our guide quickens the pace (‘Let’s Get Out Of This Country’), changes tone (the Detroit pop of ‘I Need All The Friends I Can Get) and spills the beans (the biographical self-comparisons of ‘Dory Previn’). Not a second is wasted. Campbell and Camera Obscura guides us through foggy roads, hairpin bends and the drone of back seat bastardry, with golden conversation and intimate detail.