The industrialization of nostalgia has grown so tedious that the comeback of an old favorite can elicit as much malaise as excitement these days. But news of Camera Obscura’s impending return stirred something hot and fluttery even in cycle-hardened indie-rock hearts. Stereogum “literally squealed,” as did I, as did probably anyone who followed the most loveable band in twee from around 2000 to 2015, a run cut short by the untimely death of keyboardist Carey Lander. How else could we express our feelings about music that, even at its saddest, had brought such unique delight—for reasons that, given its unpretentious style, were so hard to put into words?
It took years to fathom someone sitting in for Lander, in which time Campbell also had a child. But reuniting in 2019 at the behest of Belle and Sebastian was a most fitting rebirth: In 2001, Stuart Murdoch had produced Camera Obscura’s debut, Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi. Indie fans were already gaga for one Glaswegian band with shy boy-girl vocals, old-fashioned pop underpinnings, and zesty, testy lyrics, and they were thrilled to get another one right from the source. Underachievers Please Try Harder, from 2003, perfected their style—plainspoken, sardonic, deliciously heartbroken; bookish rather than self-consciously literary; and marked by subtle strains of postwar Americana, which flourished on 2006’s Let’s Get Out of This Country, a clear turning point. John Henderson, who sang a lot on the first two records, left the band, and Campbell took center stage. Over two more albums, her lilting, aching songs carried the band’s relatability over into a color-drenched land of high fidelity, where it flushed with big studio strings and horns, embracing bubblegum rock, orchestral pop, beach music, and, especially, country and western from the altars of Patsy, Tammy, and Dolly.
There were many reasons to be optimistic about Look to the East, Look to the West, the Scottish band’s first album in 11 years. They had gone out in top form on 2013’s Desire Lines, which I slightly underrated then but grew to adore. Key creators of their ferny, silvery sound were still in place—including McKeeve, bassist Gavin Dunbar, and drummer Lee Thomson—and Lander’s former role was ably taken up by Donna Maciocia. But the emotional charge in anticipation of the new album came from the fact that their story had been left unfinished so suddenly and cruelly. This wasn’t a comeback; it was catharsis, and the only question was whether or not time had faded Tracyanne Campbell's gifts: her rumpled-classic songwriting, unerring instinct for melodic embellishment, and the long green meadows of her voice.
The record’s opening moments seem designed to allay those concerns straightaway. On “Liberty Print,” Campbell unleashes a tiered, fountaining run and then starts stringing out her fluted phrases like soft pearls. Wafting on a bed of sparkling doo-wop, they sound instantly familiar and washed in fond associations, but the hissing drum machine is something new, and the band finds a similar balance of good memories and fresh energies on each song. Guitar leads and bass-led grooves are more prominent, and each member seems to have more space to breathe and shine. The worst you could say about any prior Camera Obscura album was that it had highs so blinding they threw a slight shade on other great tunes—the “French Navy” conundrum. But their latest is their most consistent yet, and it stands among their best.
Look to the East, Look to the West, which reunites the band with two-time producer Jari Haapalainen, clears away the orchestral elements to make room for both more electronic textures—drum machines, quirky or period guitar effects—and a deeper country palette of piano, pedal steel, and starry Hammond organ. Sometimes things are as simple as the lead single, “Big Love,” a bounding, winsome slice of California country rock, but “Only a Dream” swaps the band’s usual guitar reverb for a tremolo delay that ripples with concentric rings, recalling the spacey gardens of the similarly named Cranberries song. A pair of stunners called “Sleepwalking” and “Sugar Almond,” the latter written to Lander, make you wonder why Campbell doesn’t do solo piano ballads more often, with such an ideally structured but expressive voice for it.
“Denon” seems to be concocted from the baroque pop of Pet Sounds and the Christine McVie side of Fleetwood Mac, that agile, tripping-along sense of melody. It evinces—alongside “We’re Gonna Make It in a Man’s World,” cowritten with Maciocia—what it’s tempting to call a newfound sense of confidence: “Hey, it’s all right if you find me trite,” Campbell sings. “The lines on my face are clear and in sight.” But really, though it might fly under the radar because of all the charming postures and mooning over sailors, she’s always talked this way. The chorus of the first song on her first record laid it down: “I know where I stand/I don’t need you to hold my hand.” That sense of no-nonsense centeredness amid the painful confusion of life and love has always been Camera Obscura’s heart, and it still beats here.
Campbell is a distinctive lyricist in the way she goes wandering through effective cliches, striking images, slices of life, and funny demotic phrases, and just as casually turns up stand-alone lines that you never forget along the way. My favorite ever is “Now my door has swollen from the rain,” from “Books Written for Girls.” The line that stands out here is in “Baby Huey (Hard Times),” one of the best and most adventurous new looks, a stretchy electro-pop taffy in the vein of the Blow’s classic “True Affection.” Over a gently switching acoustic guitar, Campbell sings, “The chaos of summer has died,” seeming to enfold everything that has been irrevocably lost while awakening to everything still to be found, in the autumn and winter of life, when the proportions of things grow clearer. Look to the East, Look to the West reminds us of better times while making it possible to believe the best is yet to come.
Correction: An earlier version misidentified Kenny McKeeve as the principal singer on the band’s first two records.
