Ballad Of The Broken Seas

Submitted by Glyn Lewis on 16 February 2013 - 10:27pm

Cover:

Artist:

Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan

album-ID:

a_73

Nationality:

Year:

2 006

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

Deus Ibi Est*Black Mountain*The False Husband*Ballad Of The Broken Seas*Revolver*Ramblin’ Man*(Do You Wanna) Come Walk With Me?*Saturday’s Gone*It’s Hard To Kill A Bad Thing*Honey Child What Can I Do?*Dusty Wreath*The Circus Is Leaving Town

Length-in-mins:

Nominator:

Bean

meeting-ID:

m_28

Now-num:

Spotify-URL:

7dJrI8JqHv6rYGGkU8Y1Dx

Grooveshark-URL:

Ballad+Of+Broken+Seas/165646

Short-title:

balladBroken

nominator-ID:

u_1

Meeting-date:

Monday, 10 May 2010

MusicBrainz-URL:

994cdad1-0365-3439-89ed-6686bd563503

Wikipedia-URL:

Ballad_Of_The_Broken_Seas

Spotify-link-type:

album

Metacritic-URL:

ballad-of-the-broken-seas/isobel-campbell-mark-lanegan

Discogs-URL:

Isobel-Campbell-Mark-Lanegan-Ballad-Of-The-Broken-Seas/master/43455

Allmusic-URL:

ballad-of-the-broken-seas-mw0000350901

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84

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

In the kitchen / cookin up a storm

5-6-7-8-10-12

2

The sound of this album is a mournful, mid-west, 50s, retro Americana sort of vibe - ballad oriented, with twangy guitars, loads of echo and sweeping string sections, you get the idea. It sounds fantastically authentic and believable to me, even though the whole thing is really something of a contrivance. These are songs on the whole written by a young Scottish lass in the 2000s, which I guess makes it even more impressive.

I read somewhere this is what you hoped the Nick Cave & Kylie Minogg album might have sounded like, which I think is a fair observation. It is in that sort of Nick Cave, Tom Waits territory (particularly Mark Lanagan's voice). There are all combinations of the two vocalists, and which are nicely contrasted – angelic, innocent, sweet with rough and wearisome. They sing poignant, touching lyrics, poetic without being obtuse.

There are lovely, sparse arrangements, which all sound different to each other – with understated instrumentation and nice changes between songs. It probably doesn't really hold up to repeated plays as the composition is fairly straightforward but, that reservation aside, this is a great album pretty much from beginning to end.
74

reviewed by

Richard Norbury
74

reviewed by

Matthew Baker

There Will Be Blood

3

A very evocative album, you can taste the dust and the hard life of the mid west. Nice songwriting and good use of interplay between the two vocal styles. Plus a reference to menstruation, which is always welcome.
70

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

Very beautiful, subtle and understated, with a ridiculous (yet pleasing) contrast in vocal styles. Enjoyable and soothing when you're in the mood, but overall maybe a bit unexciting for my tastes. Not a million miles away from being a classic.