Campbell & Lanegan

Know which one we prefer

Sunday at Devil Dirt

Gravel voiced Seattle grunge veteran Mark Lanegan reteams with Isobel Campbell, from formerly fey indie types Belle and Sebastian for their second collaboration, Sunday at the Dirt Devil.

The ex Screaming Trees frontman and sometime Queens of the Stone Age axe wielder bagged a Mercury nomination for his first effort with Campbell, Ballad of the Broken Seas in 2006. It raised a few eyebrows.

There were inevitable comparisons to other similar paired 60-a-day gruff tones and sweeter female voices such as Lee and Nancy, Charlotte and Gainsbourg and in recent memory Nick Cave and Kylie.

It was a good album, but anything other than outstanding was lazily dubbed a ‘side-project’. So it’s kudos to them that they are back with a bolder and better album.

The strength of the juxtaposition is that you never tire of either voice, the often nourish bluesy folky sound could make this the sleeper hit of the summer.

At times Campbell slips back into fey territory, ‘Don’t You Cry’ sounds akin to her weedy solo efforts before she engineered the collaboration. But all is forgiven as there are so many gems, Keep Me in Mind Sweetheart and Come on Over (Turn Me On) are plain simple classics.

Lanegan has his finger in plenty of pies of late, his new band The Gutter Twins are fulfilling his urge for riff-a-long amped rock - but it could be his collaboration with Campbell that endears him to new fans to whom grunge is something around the bathroom plughole – the big softie.

We say: They’ll be hosting This Morning Next

They say: Dense with the sort of dark, erotic symbolism that comes as standard on Nick Cave narratives’ The Times.

Best Tracks: 'Back Burner', unlikely duo smoulder with added lumberjack.

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