Tuesday, July 11, 2006  

Live, Camera Obscura Underdeveloped

Washington Post, Tuesday, July 11, 2006; Page C04

The things that make Camera Obscura charming on record -- singsong melodies, unpretentious indie-rock aspirations -- are the same things that doomed its live show Sunday at the Black Cat. The Scottish sextet played an enervating hour-long set, ambling through 14 songs with all the urgency of a concussed sloth.

Singer and guitarist Tracyanne Campbell has a flat, wee voice, but it sounds sweet and innocent on the band's latest CD, "Let's Get Out of This Country," where you can make out her lovelorn lyrics. But her singing was lost in the Black Cat's muddy mix, which was punctuated by several short blasts of feedback likely due to Campbell's microphone being pushed into the red because of her weak voice. (You couldn't hear what she was saying between songs, either.)

Camera Obscura's love of Phil Spectorish pop is obvious, and the band evokes that layered, reverb-drenched sound on its recordings. But live, despite having six instrumentalists, Camera Obscura displayed little to no dynamics. It was if the wall of sound had been chipped away to reveal songs that are little more than skeletons, not fully fleshed-out compositions.

The set's first five tunes were scarcely above a whisper, and it wasn't until the group's fab new single, "Lloyd, I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken," that the concert picked up, however briefly. The peppy song is a playful response to 1984's "Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken?," by the great Lloyd Cole, but it doesn't evoke his polished pop, sounding more like another '80s tune: Altered Image's "I Could Be Happy" as covered by the Pastels or Belle and Sebastian, the Glasgow indie-rock bands who were huge influences on Camera Obscura.

But after "Lloyd," the band brought the energy level back down to drowsy, leaving the large audience chatting away, heartbroken. --Christopher Porter

Posted by CP | Link |

---