Onetime John Peel favourites Camera Obscura return with their fourth album, My Maudlin Career. It’s been a long journey for this band, no overnight success, but a solid reputation steadily built up since starting out in 1996. The line-up has changed over the years but the song-writing talent and distinctive voice of Tracyanne Campbell remain at the heart of Camera Obscura.

My Maudlin Career is a hugely ambitious undertaking, producing a thickly layered sound. Sumptuous strings combined with deceptively upbeat rhythms result in an album that constantly veers between 1940s Hollywood and 1960s pop. Careless Love for instance oozes Hollywood glamour and could easily accompany Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh falling in and out of love. The Sweetest Thing meanwhile is pure summertime jangly pop, conjuring the image of a teenage girl in her bedroom working her way through a stack of records while getting ready to go out on a date.

This is an intensely personal album - Campbell’s lyrics act as her therapy, exploring her heartache and the bitter sweet nature of falling in love. James is the most poignant song on the album, relating the horribly realistic tale of a crushing break-up. Campbell certainly seems to be unlucky in love. Even the initially upbeat single, French Navy ends in heartbreak. You can’t help thinking that if Campbell ever has a shot at living happily ever after, she’ll lose her source of song-writing inspiration - it’s something of a Catch 22 situation.

Camera Obscura don’t really have an ‘understated’ setting on their musical dial (apart from on the lovely Other Towns and Cities) and occasionally it feels like there’s too much going on. Campbell’s voice is strong enough to carry any song but sometimes it has to compete with a myriad of other sounds. My Maudlin Career doesn’t exactly break new ground for Camera Obscura, but more of the same is not bad thing when it is done so well.

Release date: 20/04/09
Label: 4AD
Aritist website: http://www.camera-obscura.net/

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