Camera Obscura |  Camera Obscura is not the first great band to come out of Glasgow, Scotland. With their first two albums Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi and Underachievers Please Try Harder, CO has always been compared to their predecessors and fellow Scots, Belle & Sebastian. Never have they been completely faulted for their similarity to this band, for their lead female and back-up male vocals balance out the lead male and back-up female vocal sounds of B&S, but with their new album, Let’s Get Out of This Country, Camera Obscura has finally broken free of the comparisons drawn from their homeland and solidified a sound that is all their own.
The most distinguishing feature of this album, aside from its striking consistency, is the sense of balance that it creates from beginning to end. One would think that it would be difficult to achieve the same sense of contrast and balance after the departure of male vocalist John Henderson, but with the vocals now left entirely to a female voice, singer Tracyanne Campbell really steps up to the plate in his absence, not only creating her own balance in one voice, but giving Camera Obscura a stronger sense of identity as well. She has the kind of charismatic voice that could make almost any tune sound pretty, although fortunately the melodies of Let’s Get Out are pleasing and interesting on their own. Campbell has vocals and a perspective that are beautifully feminine, but her lyrics often hint a masculine coarseness as well, which creates a balance and sensibility that floats through all of CO’s lines. For instance, in the song “The False Contender,” she combines her sweet voice and the tenderness of lines like “What will I do? Will it always be you?” with more traditionally masculine visual lines like “he was so thin, there must have been deep sorry gnawing away at him” and “you left your mark, you sunk your teeth / into the back of my neck” that are reminiscent of “Suspended from Class” lyrics “I don’t know my elbow from my ass” and other past works.
With her lyrics, Campbell conveys a realness around her struggle for balance between emotional vulnerability and independence, between hopeless yearning for love and confident dismissal of it. She shows her understanding that nothing in life is black and white, and that two contrasting ideas can be true all at once. In “I Need All the Friends I Can Get,” she condemns her audience with lines like “Yeah I know what you are,” but then turns around saying “I’m not saying I’m free from blame because I need all the friends I can get,” showing that she is wise enough to see through people but at the same time can admit her own faults. In the song “Dory Previn” she captures the innocence of “boys” and “girls in pretty dresses” alongside of the jaded attitude coming from a relationship gone sour, and her need to let go. She combines timidity and vulnerability with bold determination to be done with a relationship, beginning with “Do you think it’s time I put him out of my mind?” and later answering her own question, gradually getting more sure of herself throughout the song. Campbell and the rest of Camera Obscura even capture this sense of balance beyond just the lyrics. In songs like “Tears for Affairs,” there is a balance of the easily accessible melodies with the occasional unsteadiness of her voice, a subtlety that makes the melancholy of the song seem much more believable.
Camera Obscura concludes a stellar album with the song “Razzle Dazzle Rose,” bringing together the balance that has been seen throughout. The song is from the perspective of someone looking tiredly back on life so far, (“I’m feeling older”) and giving wisdom both to someone younger and to herself. Despite her tired, worn out state, she says “When I choose my color, it’ll be Razzle Dazzle Rose,” and although the last notes of the song are tired and give the sound of an ending, her voice is confident, hinting that there will be more to come. I hope that there will be much more to come from this Glasgow band, and I look forward to seeing them expand the sound that is no longer Belle & Sebastian, but completely Camera Obscura.
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