Categories : Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 3/5 Released: March 7, 2006 Reviewer: Trent Depue |
Ballad of the Broken Seas, the full length follow up to December’s EP Ramblin’ Man sees a blend of the melodious, but far too often restrained voice of Isobel Campbell, and the deep baritone of former Screaming Trees member Mark Lanegan.
Campbell does most of the work here, producing the album, taking writing credit on the majority of the songs, and playing a multitude of instruments. Lanegan does little more than lend his voice, but does take the vocal lead on most every track, while Campbell, at volumes generally just above a whisper provides back up. These vocals, that are almost boring at times, are wholly saved by the musical quality on the album. Beautiful guitar work and string accompaniment is enough to keep the listener interested and is the albums saving grace.
While the run away favorite on this album is the Hank Williams cover ‘Ramblin’ Man,’ the slow paced ‘Black Mountain’ and instrumental ‘It’s Hard to Kill a Bad Thing’ also make strong showings. Although the album is too slow paced, the music and chemistry between these two artists stands as proof to the fact that, with a little more energy, they would be more than capable of producing a great album.
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