4AD
2009
My Maudlin Career
About This Album
If Camera Obscura's jump from Merge (and Elefant) to 4AD had you worried, or if you had a nagging suspicion that the switch was some kind of cynical career move and that they might change from being a small band with a knack for creating small moments of transcendent beauty and emotion to bland major-label-styled product (not that 4AD is any more "major label" than Merge in 2009, but they do seem more like big business somehow), well, you can relax now. The only thing that's changed is that the band appears to have hired fancier stylists for their photo shoots. My Maudlin Career is almost an exact copy of their previous album Let's Get Out of This Country from Jari Haapalainen's echo-ey, layered production to the mix of ballads and uptempo songs to the preponderance of strings and the unflinchingly honest lyrics. And of course, Tracyanne Campbell's beguiling vocals and the band's -- now down to a five-piece with the departure of trumpeter Nigel Baillie -- note-perfect performances. Both albums lead off with their hookiest song (in this case the extremely lovely "French Navy"), have moments of Motown-fueled joy ("Honey in the Sun") and quiet country rock ("Forest and Sands"), and excel at dramatic girl group-influenced ballads (the title track, "The Sweetest Thing").
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8)

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