Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out Of This Country

Genre rock Publisher Merge Records External Links Official Camera Obscura Website Official Merge Records Website

"Making all your friends feel so guilty/About their cynicism/And the rest of their generation/Not even the government are gonna stop you now/But are you ready to be heartbroken?

"Are you ready to be heartbroken?"

It took twenty-two years, but somebody finally replied to Lloyd Cole and The Commotions' question at the end of their 1984 album Rattlesnakes. And the answer, from an energized Camera Obscura, now on their third album, is an emphatic "yes." "Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken" is a fantastic response song, drenched in strings, horns, and anything else the band can dredge up to create the thrift-store Spector sound that seems to be rather popular in Britain right now (see: The Pipettes, Lucky Soul, Kicker, and many, many others). I hope this is the beginning of a new trend; if Belle & Sebastian haven't written a sarcastic reply to Prefab Sprout's "Appetite" by the end of the year, I'll be very upset.

If you were expecting Let's Get Out Of This Country to drag the band into the oft-mooted foray into Finnish Electroclash Metal, you'll probably be a little disappointed; the album continues down the path already trailed by Underachievers Please Try Harder, so we get songs about reasonable obscure singer-songwriters like Dora Previne and gentle ballads such as "The False Contender." So far, so good, but with the exception of the opening track, nothing to get too excited about.

The title track announces the start of the second half of the album, and thankfully, picks up the pace somewhat. It's back to the delightfully cheap wall of sound and whip-smart lines like "We'll find a cathedral city/You can convince me I am pretty." The fragility of "Country Mile's" "the more you look forlorn, the more to you I warm" is blown away by the stomp of "It Looks Could Kill." The gentle coda of "Razzle Dazzle Rose." All wonderful.

But it's "I Need All The Friends I Can Get" that makes the album for me. The jaunty sweetness and lightness of the backing can't cover up the despair of the singer, realizing that, as an adult, she's surrounded by people she despises, including herself, "the people are tired and commitment has gone," but she (and everybody else, by extension) is so desperate not to be alone that she'll bury the hate and loathing within her. There's something uniquely British about that.

Camera Obscura have come a long way since they were viewed as being Belle & Sebastian hangers-on. Let's Get Out Of This Country has a few slow points, but the second half of the album makes it all worth it. Now, if only they'd stop teasing and come to Oxford soon...